Road Doc
Chapter 28
“Marty called a meeting in thirty minutes down in the conference room on the second floor” Brian said as Howie opened the door to his large suite.
Howie stared at him blankly and nodded.
“You look like shit man. You okay?” he asked, noticing the dark circles under Howie’s red rimmed eyes.
Howie nodded again.
“I’ll be there” he answered.
Brian and Howie arrived at the conference room at the same time and found Marty already there. Marty paced nervously, smoking a cigarette. Kevin sauntered in a few minutes later, quiet and obviously perturbed. AJ was nowhere to be seen.
“Where the hell is AJ?” Marty barked.
“Probably passed out drunk somewhere” Kevin said with a sarcastic laugh.
“Not passed out drunk, just not used to being up this early” AJ said, sneaking in and startling everyone. “What’s up? What’s so important that we’re all up before noon? Where’s Nick?”
“Do they know what happened?” Brian asked Marty, nodding in the direction of Kevin and AJ.
Nick walked into the room slowly, painfully. He was bruised and hung his head low. Nick walked over and sat down, avoiding everyone’s eyes.
“What the fuck happened to you?” AJ said, stunned by Nick’s appearance.
“That’s what we’re here to talk about” Marty said, walking over and locking the door to the conference room. He then looked to Nick.
“I can’t do this” Nick said quietly, breaking down in tears.
“Can’t do what, Nick? What did you do now?” Kevin said harshly.
“Shut up Kevin” Brian hissed.
“Fuck off” Kevin barked back. “What did you do now, Nick?”
“Leave him alone” Howie piped in.
“Fuck you!” Kevin yelled.
“Damn Kev, chill the fuck out” AJ said, standing up and walking towards him.
“I won’t chill the fuck out until I know what the fuck Nick did that we’re all here in some secret meeting” Kevin shouted, standing up and moving towards AJ.
“Hey, sit back down” Brian said, trying to calm Kevin.
“I said chill out man” AJ said, standing chest to chest with Kevin.
“Fuck off” Kevin said, shoving AJ down onto a chair.
Marty and Brian were instantly on Kevin, holding him back as Howie kept AJ from
counter attacking. They were shouting and pulling at each other trying desperately to restrain the two men, trying to keep them from beating each other up.
“Dammit guys! I’m gay!” Nick screamed, standing up.
Everyone instantly fell silent and looked over at Nick who stood with a stunned look on his face, obviously surprised at what had come out of his mouth.
Nick sat back down and covered his face with his hands.
“Everybody sit down and listen up” Marty said calmly. “Last night Nick got attracted. I think you can tell just by looking at him that it was pretty bad.”
Everyone looked over at Nick, who had tears in his eyes.
“Nick...” Marty said softly. “You need to tell them.”
Nick sat, unmoving for several minutes before he finally spoke up.
“Like I said, I’m gay. There. Now you all know. I picked up a guy last night and he
ended up beating the shit out of me. Can we leave now?” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
“You’re what?” Kevin said harshly, unbelieving.
“Kevin” Howie said “Just let him talk”
“Look, I fucked up okay? I didn’t want anyone to know, but this happened and now the whole fucking world is going to find out that I’m a....” Nick said, his words trailing off.
“The reason we’re here is that we, Nick and I, wanted to talk to you about how we should handle this. The Firm is having a stroke over the whole situation and has basically said that it’s up to Nick as to how we deal with this.”
“Jesus, Nick” Kevin said, obviously disgusted. “Could you pick a worse time to come out of the closet?”
“Leave him alone” AJ barked, standing up and heading towards Kevin again.
“Stop it!” Nick yelled.
“Look, everyone just settle down. We need to think about this.’ Marty said, pulling up a chair to sit between AJ and Kevin. “The press is going to be all over this. They probably already are. The area of town that Nick got attacked in is known to be frequented by the...by homosexuals”
“Great” Kevin hissed under his breath.
“Nick isn’t really prepared to go public with this, but we know that there are going to be a lot of rumors circulating in the next couple of days. We need to get our stories straight and stick to it, got it?”
Everyone nodded, except for Kevin who simply sat staring at the floor with his jaw
clinched.
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