“Morning,” Nick mumbled as he stumbled into the kitchen. Katelin was seated at the kitchen table, in a bathrobe, drinking coffee while she fed Aidan his breakfast.
“Hi daddy,” Aidan greeted, grinning a toothless grin. Nick’s face visibly brightened. “Morning little man!” He looked over at Katelin who had yet to make eye contact with him. He walked over and leaned down, whispering in her ear. “Morning.”
Katelin looked up quickly, startled to see him so close to her. “Hi.” Nick smiled at her quickly, before leaning down and pressing his lips gently to hers. “What was that for?”
“For you,” Nick grinned, standing up and walking over to the fridge. “Didn’t want you to think that last night didn’t mean anything to me. Because it did. A lot.”
Katelin just stared at him. His back was to her and he was leaning in to the fridge, looking for something to eat. Last night had been amazing. And, even though she knew that it was probably the last time, because she had Jay and Nick had Lanie, she didn’t regret it at all. But, the more she thought about it, the more she didn’t want it to be a one-time thing. She wanted Nick back. For good.
Nick turned around and caught her eye for a minute and they just stared at each other. A silent message passing between them.
“Nicky!” Moment ruined. Lanie’s voice and loud footsteps were heard marching through the foyer. “Are you here?” She walked into the kitchen and stopped short at the sight of her boyfriend and his ex-girlfriend. “What’s going on?”
Katelin switched her gaze from Nick to Lanie. “Nothing, Lanie.” She stood up and went to get Aidan out of his chair. “Come on, honey. Let’s go get dressed.”
Lanie smirked as Katelin led Aidan out of the room, feeling triumphant. She reveled in the fact that she made Katelin feel so insignificant whenever they were around each other. She turned around and looked at Nick, pretending not to notice how intently he was staring at Kate’s retreating form. “So, Nicky,” she said, getting his attention. “What are we doing today?”
Nick refrained from rolling his eyes. He really did love the girl but sometimes she did annoy the hell out of him. “I don’t know, Lane. I have flight reservations to make. What are you doing?”
“Flight reservations for what?”
“New York,” Nick replied, nonchalantly.
Lanie’s eyes widened. “Why are we going to New York?”
“We are not going,” Nick clarified. “I’m going. Katelin’s going. Jeff is going. And Aidan’s going. We have a hearing on Friday about Aidan’s custody.”
“Why can’t I go?” Lanie whined, grabbing on to his hand. “Please honey? I want to be there for you, baby. Just in case anything happens.”
Nick shook off her grasp. “Nothing’s going to happen. And anyway, I don’t necessarily think it’s a very good idea for the judge to see you there too. The only reason we’re having this hearing is because the social worker reported that the way we were all living was too unconventional for a two-year-old boy. I don’t need to be surrounded by the live-in mother of my child and my girlfriend. I don’t think that would fly. And I am
Lanie hoped that Nick didn’t see the fear in her eyes. If he ever found out that she was the source of the social worker’s information, he would kick her to the curb for sure. The social worker told her that, if she could, she would try to keep her name out of it, but that she wasn’t promising anything. All Lanie wanted was for Katelin to be gone. But the only way to do that would be if Nick lost custody. If Nick didn’t have custody of Aidan, there would be no reason for him to keep Katelin around in the first place. And, while she thought the little boy was cute and she saw how much Nick adored him, she couldn’t risk losing Nick to Katelin. Her relationship with him was way more important than that.
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Krista sat and glanced at her watch, while she absentmindedly stirred the straw in her drink. She was fifteen minutes late. Krista couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out why she had asked to meet her in the first place. There was every reason in the world for the two of them to hate each other. To be like Lanie and Katelin. At each other’s throats all of the time. But they weren’t. In fact, they were almost friendly with each other.
She heard the door of the restaurant open and close and glanced up, seeing Sarah walk in, shaking the rain off of her coat. Sarah glanced around and saw Krista, sitting in the corner, playing with the glass of water in front of her. She smiled warmly and walked over to her. “Hey,” she greeted, sitting down. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“No problem.” Krista smiled in return. “Although I’m not sure why you wanted me to.”
“I needed to talk to you about something,” Sarah explained. “But it can wait for a little bit. Why don’t we order something?”
Krista nodded, more confused than ever. Sarah was being genuinely sweet. It was strange. Maybe she didn’t realize that Krista was in love with her fiancée. If she did, Krista couldn’t, for the life of her, imagine why she was being so nice.
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“Is that everything, Ms. Perera?” The detective asked.
Ang nodded, wiping the tears off of her face. “You have to believe me, Detective. I didn’t kill that man. I don’t even know who he was. I don’t know why this is happening.”
Eric, the bodyguard that had helped Ang cover everything up that one fateful night, placed his hand on her shoulder, explaining to the detective what he knew. “I had a friend of mine who’s a P.I. check out the needle. There were a third set of prints on that syringe. Someone else was in that room. And I’m willing to bet that the person who is doing this to Ang knows who those third set of prints belong to.”
“I hope you still have the evidence,” the detective stated, making a few more notes on his pad, before glancing up at the four of them in the room.
“We do,” Eric stated. “My buddy’s got it locked up in a safe place.”
“Well you’ll need to bring that in as soon as possible,” he told them. He glanced up at AJ and Brian. “Now you two need to explain to me how you’re involved.”
“She called me when she woke up in the strange hotel room,” AJ explained. “I filled Eric in and we got over there as soon as we could. I got Ang out of there as fast as possible while Eric and his friend stayed and checked everything out. We never meant for this to get so out of hand. But we had nothing to do with this guy’s death.”
“And you?” The detective looked at Brian.
“I’m her boyfriend,” Brian told him. “I didn’t know until a while after it happened. Ang filled me in when the phone calls started to come.”
The detective scribbled a couple of more notes on to his pad before standing up. “Okay, it looks like I’ve gotten all I can for right now. I’m going to contact the L.A.P.D. with this information. They’ve been working on this case for three years.” The four of them didn’t say anything. Just listened intently. Scared, even. “I hope you guys understand what a serious offense this is. Obstruction of justice is a serious crime. You could be thrown in jail for a long, long time.”
“They understand,” Brad, an attorney from the Firm, chimed in. “And I hope you understand why this is so important that we keep this under wraps. The press cannot find out about this. We’ll help you out as much as possible. But only on the conditions that they’re all immune from prosecution and this is kept strictly confidential. No word to the media.” He stuck his hand out to the detective. “Do we have a deal, detective?”
“Yes we do.”
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“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” Krista asked as she and Sarah both picked at their food.
Sarah sighed. “I guess there’s no easy way to say this so I’ll just come out with it.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Do you still love AJ?”
If Krista had had something in her mouth she would’ve started choking but thank god she had just finished swallowing when Sarah asked that question. “What?!”
“Are you still in love with my fiancee?” Sarah repeated.
“Wh…wh…why would you ask me that?” Krista stuttered. She couldn’t believe her own ears.
“Because I need to know,” Sarah explained. “Honestly, I won’t get mad. I just really want to know.”
“Why?” Krista asked again. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand what’s going on.”
“I know about yours and AJ’s history,” Sarah began. “Believe me, it took him a while, but AJ finally told me everything. And God, if I went through what you went through, I don’t know what I would do. I can understand why you left him, Krista. I mean, I can’t even begin to imagine what losing a baby would do to me.” She noticed Krista’s eyes fill with tears at the mere mention of the child that she lost. “I’m sorry. I know it hurts to think about it.”
Krista reached up and wiped her eyes before the tears spilled down her cheeks. “It’s okay. To tell you the truth, I don’t know why I left either. I thought that if I could just get away from everything that reminded me of the baby…AJ, Orlando, everyone else…that I would finally start to get better. I mean, I was in this severe, severe depression and I just couldn’t get any better. I thought that if I went back to New York and started my life over again, that I would be fine.”
“Did it work?” Sarah questioned.
Krista shook her head, slowly. “No. It didn’t. I mean, with time, I began to feel better. I wasn’t nearly as depressed as I had been. But forgetting about everything….That never happened. I stll thought about AJ all the time. It was so hard to even date other men. Because he would always be there in one way or another. I would just sit there on a date, and compare the guy to AJ. His looks, his career, his sense of humor. And none of them ever measured up.”
“So do you still love him?” Sarah asked again, almost afraid to hear the answer. Even though she knew what she was doing was the right thing to do, she almost wish that Krista would just say no. And then Sarah could live happily ever after.
“Yeah,” Krista whispered, staring at her hands. “I’m sorry. I know you guys are getting married. But I do. I’m still in love with AJ.”
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Kevin listened and listened but there was no answer. He couldn’t believe she didn’t even have the guts to tell him in the first place. He had to find out from some damn newspaper. His sadness was slowly turning to anger and frustration. How dare she trivialize something so important as their engagement, their relationship of almost FOUR YEARS and turn around and marry some other guy. Without so much as a word that there relationship was over. And she didn’t even have the nerve to tell him it was over.
Stutter,
Joe feat. Mystikal
“Hey,” Kevin said into the phone. “Can you come over? I really need you.”
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“Where the hell are we?” Christine asked, as Paul pulled the car up to a deserted cabin in the woods. It was just before nightfall and Christine could barely see where they were. “What’s going on Paul?”
“You’ll see,” Paul replied, a small smirk playing on his face.
Christine glanced around and noticed that it was the cabin he had taken her to a few Christmases ago. When she finally gave in and began dating him again. Before Christine had moved to Florida the first time and met Howie, when she and Paul were still happy and in love, Paul used to bring her here all the time. It was a quiet little retreat in North Eastern Connecticut. Far away from any sort of civilization. “Why are we here?”
“Melissa’s waiting for you,” Paul answered, stopping the car and getting out. He glanced back in at Christine, who still had yet to move. “You coming? I’m sure your sister will be disappointed if you don’t want to see her.”
Christine was terrified by the maniacal look in his eyes. She had never seen him look at her that way before and was scared about what’s going on. She tentatively made her way out of the car and up to the front of the house. Glancing to her right, she saw another unfamiliar vehicle over on the side of the cabin. “Who’s that?” she asked, looking back at Paul. “What the hell is going on, Paul? And what does my sister have to do with it?”