Nick felt defeated. He hung his head and simply stated, “I love her.”

Kevin wasn’t sure if he heard Nick correctly. “What?”

Nick lifted his head and looked at Kevin. Running his hand back over his head he repeated only slightly louder, “I love her, Kevin. I love Bree.”

“Ok.” Kevin was really confused. Shaking his head he looked at the floor then at Nick. “Ok, so explain to me how you loving her, which we’ve all know for a long time now, by the way, has ruined your friendship with her and made you so miserable?”

Nick went to sit back down. It was out now. There was no hiding from it, so he had no choice but to talk about it. “How? Let’s see. I love her but we are just friends. We agreed that we would only be friends. That is all she wants.”

“Is that what she said?”

“Yeah, that’s what we talked about a while ago, when she came back out. I wanted to know, you know, kind of test the waters, and see how she was feeling. She said she was my friend. That we’d always be friends.”

“So have you told Brianna how you feel?”

“Are you crazy?”

“No. Why is that such a crazy idea. When you love someone you tell them. Come on Nick, we all knew this was coming. You two have been crazy about each other since day one. You just needed to find it in yourself.”

“Crazy about each other, sure. In love with each other, no. She is seeing some guy back in Florida. She doesn’t love me that way. It is hard enough trying to be normal around her and not do something else to screw things up. I can’t tell her how I feel. She’ll freak.”

“Something else? As in you’ve already done something?”

“Kevin don’t you listen? Of course I have. When it comes to relationships I’m the screw up king.”

“What happened?”

Nick flushed crimson.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“It can’t be nothing if it’s got you two not speaking.”

“Nothing alright. I just, I just, I just…” He hung his head and remembered all the ‘I justs’ that he had done. Remembered them all too clearly.

“You just what, Nick. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what is going on. Did you say something to upset her? What?”

“No, I apologized excessively before I left the room.”

“This is the night that you slept in Bri’s room?” Nick nodded his head. “Well what happened? What did you two fight about?”

“We didn’t fight.” Nick looked up and saw the puzzled look on Kevin’s face. Cocking a small crooked smile he thought to himself he really can be so slow sometimes. “I came back from rehearsal exhausted and took a long hot bath. When I got out Brianna had these scented candles lit in the room. She always brings them. She says they help her relax when she is stressed. So anyway, I lie down in the bed and she starts giving this back rub. She’s done it before, right? No big deal right? Wrong. Things have been, well strange between us for a while. Since before AJ went into rehab. For a while I thought things were going forward, you know, in that direction. But then we had this ‘just friends’ understanding thing and I’m supposed to just turn my feelings off. Well it doesn’t work that easy. Especially when I felt her sitting on me, feeling her hands and all these thoughts and images in my head. Jesus, I made a move on my best friend. Tried to take advantage of her. When I realized what I was doing I apologized, grabbed my clothes, and practically ran out of the room.”

Kevin just sat for a minute taking in all that Nick had just said. Kevin finally shook his head and asked, “You say you made a move on her, well what did she do?”

Nick shrugged his shoulders.

“You don’t know? Did she say anything? Did she push you away? What?”

Nick shrugged his shoulders again, but this time he did speak up. “No, she didn’t do any of that. We’ve kissed and stuff before…” He stopped and blushed. He hadn’t told any of the guys what had been going on between them. Oh well, it’s too late now that it’s out. When Kevin didn’t say anything or laugh, Nick continued. “So no, she didn’t push me away. But we agreed we’d just be friends and I crossed the line.”

“So she just laid there?”

Nick thought about it for a second. “Well not exactly.”

“Well what exactly did she do or say, Nick? I’m not trying to pry, I’m just trying to understand the situation, you know from an outside point of view.” Nick didn’t say anything. “So if she didn’t say anything, didn’t push you away, and didn’t just lie there, that leaves only one other option for me to believe.”

Nick was nodding his head. He had tried not to think about that part. About the feel of her lips kissing him back. The feel of her tongue against his and her hands in his hair pulling him closer. In his mind he had made it out to believe it was just his imagination. That she really didn’t do those things. But talking with Kevin he knew them to be true.

“She responded to the kiss, kissed you back even?” Nick was still nodding. “So what was the problem then? I don’t understand.”

**sigh** “Kevin, the problem is we agreed, JUST FRIENDS, and I crossed the line.”

“From what I am hearing it doesn’t seem like she minded too much. Did you ask you afterwards in your hasty apology?”

Nick hung his head again. “No. I just wanted to get out of there before I did something more.”

“So how do you know what she wants? Especially if you haven’t talked with her..”

“I just know, Kevin. She is seeing someone else, some nice guy right there where she lives. Besides, she is no where ready for what I was about to do.”

“She, huh? Not ready? Ready for what? She’s a grown girl, I think she can handle hearing about your feelings.”

“Not my feelings Kevin. What I was physically about to do, okay. She’s never, she hasn’t, she’s well, you know, a virgin.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. I’m serious. She lead a sheltered life, you know that. She has this ideal fantasy thing, you know, waiting until your in love and all that.”

“Smart girl.”

“Yeah. And I almost blew that for her.”

“Nick I think if she has waited this long and felt that strongly about her convictions then you wouldn’t have ‘taken’ anything from her. She would have told you to stop before things got to a point she couldn’t handle. And from what I know about Brianna, she is the type of girl to speak up, yell if necessary, and say NO. So if she wasn’t telling you no than that should say something about how she feels.”

“You think?” Nick had never really stopped to think about it that way. He never really thought to rationalize things through. Maybe Kevin was right. And if he was, then he really needed to have a serious talk with Brianna.

Nick went to bed with a little of the weight he had been carrying around lifted off his shoulders. Though he didn’t sleep much better he had a little hope of making things right, had an idea of where to go and what to say concerning Brianna. It didn’t occur to him until later to wonder at how Kevin had once again managed to get him to open up and talk about what was bothering him. He was always amazed at how the older man knew when something was wrong and knew just how to get the problem out of him, get him to open up.

<~ Chapter 77 or Chapter 79 ~>

In the End

Karina 2003