Part 14: ************************************************************************* Howie stumbled as he walked into his hotel room, Paul was at his heels. "You okay Howie? I mean your usually a lot more.." "Sober??" D asked with a chuckle. "Had a little drink to help my nerves on the flight. I bet it'll wear off soon. Anyways Pauleroo, what time is our meeting tomorrow?" "Around lunch time. I can call and cancel if you'd like." he offered. "Why? I'll be fresh as a daisy tomorrow I promise. And just how fresh is a daisy?" he pondered, rubbing his goatee in thought. "Uh well if your settled here for the night..." "Oh go go go, I'm fine." D smiled as he walked his friend to the door. "Gonna call the Mrs. and let her know the plane landed safely and crash in bed till the nice lady calls with the wake up call." "If your sure." Paul asked worriedly. "Positive, now have a good night." D gave him one last smile and shut the door in his face. AJ opened the door to see Nick standing there, a bag from 7-11 in his hands. "Hey Nicky, guess its just us tonight Jenn apparently hasn't been home all afternoon." "Trouble?" Nick asked worriedly. "Nah doubt it. Think she headed over to visit one of the girls. So what did you bring?" "Got some drinks and a couple boxes of chips to go with the burgers. We're still having burgers?" "Course." AJ headed outside to the deck and lifted up the barbecue lid revealing burgers and some potatoes in foil. "Didn't know what else to cook so..." "Hey its good for me." Nick smiled and sat down at the table. "Where'd I call you away from?" "Oh I uh hired a detective to look over some things...he'd like to look into everything if you guys would let him." AJ nodded, "Probably a good idea, you give him the envelope?" "Yeah had to, he's anxious to get started." "Me too." AJ took a beer from the sixpack and opened it up, taking a gulp. "How ya holding up?" Nick glanced up at him, "You mean without Lissy?" "Yeah." Nick shrugged, "I dunno, its strange J I mean she hates me for something I don't even remember doing but then there's the proof staring me right in the face. And I can't try to explain anything because I don't have one. She can't even look at me." "Man I'm sorry." AJ shook his head, "I'm almost sorry we didn't stand up to Lou." "He was gonna send them right to her." "Same with mine, all of you, Jenn, and mom would have gotten an envelope a couple days before the press would." Nick shook his head, "He's sick J." "Don't we know it now." he got up and flipped the burgers. Jenn stood up and answered the phone, "Hello?" Howie frowned, "Jenn?" "Howie?" "Well now that we've got that covered," he laughed softly, "is my wife around?" "I don't know if she wants to talk to you right now D." she looked across the room where Ty was laying on the couch. "Can you at least find out?" "K," she put her hand over the phone, "Ty its D...you wanna talk to him or should I tell him to go to hell?" Ty smiled lightly at the last comment, "I'll talk but if I pass it back you can tell him that." "All righty." Jenn passed Ty the phone and headed into the other room to give her some privacy. "Hi." Ty said, sitting up. "Hey. I'm here, plane landed and Paul picked me up...so no need to worry." "Who said I worried?" He sighed, "About this morning..." he started, rubbing the back of his neck, "I uh well I guess it was uncalled for." She laughed, "Uncalled for? Just saying I don't want this baby or my husband...I'd hardly say uncalled for, I'd say mean and spiteful Howard." He cringed, she only called him Howard four times in their marriage, once at the wedding and the other three when she was more than angry at him. "Ty there's just a lot of things affecting me right now and finding the pregnancy test just kinda sideswiped me." "Are you planning on blaming a lot of things on this Backstreet breakup Howie because I'd like to know in advance." She looked over and saw Jenn hovering near the doorway and waved her back in. Jenn was startled to see AJ laying in bed, channel surfing when she walked in. "Hi." she set her things down and gave him a kiss. "Hey, how's Ty doing?" She sighed sadly, "She's been better I can tell you that. D left for Puerto Rico." "Yeah he was leaving today. She bummed about that?" Jenn shook her head, "They had a fight this morning, I guess he found something and started yelling." "What did he find?" he couldn't imagine calm D yelling at anyone right now. Course with the situation going on right now, anyone was capable of anything. "A pregnancy test. Ty's pregnant J." "Oh shit of all the timing..." "Why is this bad timing?" Jenn questioned, seeing the worry appear on her husband's face. He sighed, "You'll find out soon enough honey. You ready for bed, its late and I'm awfully tired." "Yeah sure." she stood up and went to get ready for bed. Brian rubbed his eyes wearily as he climbed into the hotel bed and glanced at his watch. Almost one in the morning but he knew he had to call. He picked up his cell phone and dialled, after four rings the machine picked up which semi surprised him, "Hey honey its me. Sorry I didn't call earlier got tied up in meetings. Things are going well so I should be home on schedule Wednesday. Don't stay out too late. I'll call you back first thing tomorrow. Love ya." he clicked the phone off and leaned back against his pillow, slowly falling asleep with the phone still in his hand. Shan heard his voice on the machine as she let herself in the house. "Awfully late to call." she said outloud as she headed upstairs to bed, she'd listen to the entire message in the morning before he called.