Nick stared up at his house from the driver seat of his car. Katelin’s car was in the driveway so he knew that she was probably home. He couldn’t bring himself to get out yet, not knowing what was going to be waiting for him inside the house. So, instead, he just sat there, wondering if it was even worth the fight right now. He shook his head quickly at those thoughts. Of course it was worth fighting for. He loved Katelin. More than anything. She had given him three perfect children. But, as Nick slowly let his body slide out of the car, he wondered if that was enough anymore.

Katelin sat outside on the back deck, staring at the calm and serene water in front of her. For a while, that’s what her life was like. Calm and serene. She had a loving husband and beautiful children. But lately, it just seemed like it wasn’t enough anymore. Maybe it was her own fault. Maybe she was just too hard on Nick. She thought back to the look on Nick’s face when she told him to get out last night and her heart broke. Oh god. What have I done? she thought, as her blue eyes welled up with tears. She buried her face in her hands and began sobbing, not noticing as Nick walk outside.

Nick had heard her cries before he had even opened the door and quickly ran towards the lounge chair she was curled up on. She didn’t even realize that he had walked out until he carefully engulfed her body in his arms. Katelin looked up, startled for a second, before burying her face in his shoulder.

“Shh…” he soothed. “I always seem to make you cry, don’t I?”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I overreacted. I’m sorry. I love you so much, Nicky. I don’t want to lose you.”

Nick bit his lip, ignoring the pain in his heart at hearing her words. “You’ll never lose me, baby. I swear. I’ll always be here for you.”

Katelin pulled back from him and wiped her eyes. “I never should have kicked you out last night. I was just so angry that you were with Mandy and I flipped. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t blame you for what you did, Kate,” he said, his thumb wiping away a stray tear that had slipped down her cheek. “But we really need to talk about all of this. Calmly and rationally. I can’t deal with the constant fighting anymore.”

Katelin nodded and stood up. “Where are the kids?”

“At my mom’s still,” Nick replied. “I didn’t think that they should be here for this.”

“Good.” Katelin reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling him up from the chair and inside the house. For hours, they sat and discussed all of their problems, desperately trying not to yell and scream at each other, until, finally, Katelin couldn’t take it anymore. “I just don’t want to fight with you anymore, Nick. I want our relationship to go back to the way it was.”

“It’ll never go back, Kate.” Nick shook his head, sadly. “It can’t. We have careers. We have kids. It’ll never go back to how it was when it was just you and me.”

“So what do we do?” Katelin whispered. “You don’t want to give up, do you?” She was suddenly struck with the fear that he didn’t want her anymore. She wasn’t the fun, twenty-year-old, party animal that he fell in love with all those years ago. Suddenly, Katelin felt that that was what Nick wanted. Someone without any attachments. A younger girl. No kids. No job. Someone that could devote all of their time to him.

Nick saw the frightened look in her eyes and his heart broke. All he wanted to do at that moment was to pull her into his arms and never, ever let her go. He reached out and pulled her into his lap. “I’ll never give up on you, Kate. Never. I thought you understood that?”

“I’m not the same person I used to be Nick,” she said, almost sounding ashamed. “I can’t party with you until all hours of the night. I can’t just drop everything and go on tour with you anymore. I just thought that maybe that’s the kind of girl you still wanted.”

Nick let his head fall on to her shoulder, trying to blink back the tears in his eyes. He never wanted to make her feel like that. And he never would have thought that this was the problem. “I love you, Katelin. More than anything in the world. I don’t want anyone else. I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”

Katelin, a feeling of relief surging through her body, shifted in his lap until she was facing her husband. She carefully leaned in and placed a soft, lingering kiss on his lips. “I love you too, Nicky. I’m sorry that I lost faith in you.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Nick whispered, before capturing her lips with his own. Her tongue reaching out to play with his caused him to moan quietly in to his mouth. He pulled away and stared into her crystal, blue eyes. “Make love to me, Kate.”

Nick saw the love shining in her eyes and didn’t wait for an answer. He, once again, pressed his lips to hers, and stood up with her still in his arms, never breaking the kiss. With Katelin wrapped around him, he made his way up to their bedroom. Entering the room, he placed her down on the bed, the soft glow of the moonlight streaming through the windows, serving as the only way to light the room. He quickly pulled his shirt over his head before crawling on top of her.

Katelin reached out to him, the time it took him to take his shirt off longer than she wanted, and pulled his face down to hers. As their tongues dueled with each others, Nick’s hand found it’s way underneath her shift, to the soft skin of her stomach. He reached around to her back and slightly pulled her up from the bed. “Take this off,” he whispered, tugging at the shirt that served as the only thing separating them. Katelin quickly obliged and pulled the light, cotton shirt over her head. Returning his mouth to hers, Nick quickly un-did her bra and tossed it across the room. He gasped, feeling her bare skin against his own. His lips found their way to her neck and down to the valley of her breasts.

“Nick,” Katelin moaned. A quiet “hmm..” could be heard from him but he didn’t stop his tortured assault on her chest. “Please…” she begged. Nick looked up and met her eyes, which were glassy with desire. The rest of their clothes were quickly thrown across the room as Nick slowly entered her. He gasped, the feeling of her around him almost more than he could take. “Jesus,” he breathed. “How long has it been since I’ve made love to you?”

“Too long,” was Katelin’s breathless reply. They made love carefully and slowly that night, memorizing each other’s bodies, until falling asleep in the early morning, their bare bodies entangled with each other.

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