Chapter 8
(Brian's point of view)
Well, after dinner with the two lovely ladies, from a street vendor mind you. Nick and I were on our way back to the hotel...finally! We had gotten back on the bus that would take us straight there in about half an hour. Looking at my watch, I realized if we made that, we'd have about 10 minutes at the most to get up in the room, get these stupid tattoos off of our faces, and get into our beds. Yeah, right. We were dead. I noticed Nick was very quiet sitting next to me, the poor kid's face was swollen and his nose was running.
Ugh, I hope he wasn't getting sick. Kevin would really kill me. I turned so I was facing Nick, he had his face buried in his knees which were drawn up to his chest. Ok, something was wrong. I took a deep breath. "Nick, you okay?"
"Uh huh." Came the muffled response. All right then, lets try a different tactic.
"Is your eye bothering you?" I asked him trying to get him to look at me.
"S'ok." came the short answer. Yeah, sure it is Nick. I knew something was bothering him. Nick was often like a brick wall when it came to emotions, but if I pried hard enough, I could get him to talk to me.
"C'mon Frack, I'm your best friend and I know when there is something wrong, now why don't you just talk to me and tell me what's the matter." I said, basically forcing him to answer. He finally looked at me and when I saw his face I knew I was right.
"It's just.. I had so much fun with you today Bri, and now that we are becoming so popular back home and stuff, me and you are never gonna get to go out like that and have a good time again! We work all the time and we never get time off, and I'm not saying I don't like being in the group, I love it, it's just I wish I could have a little fun once in a while." He told me.
So that's what today had been all about. I finally got it. My heart ached as I looked at his young face, he was right though, we didn't have time to do what we had done today. But he was also right about him loving the group, he lived for this. Weather it was performing, touring, interviewing, whatever, Nick did it all to perfection. But this job didn't allow him to be a kid. How awful not to be able to go to high school, how awful to work more at the age of 17 than most middle aged business men do, how awful to have to pretend you're sick in order to just have fun. My job as the 'big brother' was to make it all better now, but what could I tell him? I looked to see him with his face in his knees again.
"Nick, look at me." He lifted his blue eyes to mine. "I know how you feel buddy and you are right. But no matter what, I'll still be here for you! We will always be 'Frick and Frack.' and Kev, AJ, and Howie will be there too. And I promise you and me will do more things together when we get time off, ok?" I looked at him hopefully. I was shocked when he started to cry.
"Yeah right Brian." He sobbed. "When we get like a big 3 day break, you are going to go home to your family and Leighanne! We can't do anything fun without security and a whole bunch of other people always telling us what to do anyway, so what's the point?" I almost started crying with him as I touched his shoulder.
"Oh Nicky, it's not like that, please don't cry." I grabbed him in a hug and began to rub his back. "Shh, it will be okay, I promise me and you will do things together and we won't work all the time, ok? We'll get Kevin to whine to the management about how we need time off and then we will all take a vacation together somewhere, how's that? He looked at me hopefully.
"Really?"
"I promise." I said releasing him. I made it a mental note to talk to Kevin about Nick later and how he's been bottling up his emotions. He does that, that's why he got so upset over it. I think he was getting sick too as he kept sniffling and sneezing. It all added up to his outburst, but I was glad he talked to me. "Remember Nick, I'm always here for you if anything is bothering you, don't forget that, ok?"
He gave me a half smile, "I won't."
"Ok, good, besides who would I tease if you were sad all the time Mr. 'walk into doors'."
"Shut up Brian! At least I didn't get eaten by a goat!" Ouch. I let that one go as I saw that we were back at the hotel finally.
"C'mon Nick, get off the bus we got to hurry!" I yelled. He jumped off and ran with me to the main doors. We entered the lobby and started towards the elevators when I froze in my tracks. SHIT, there was Kevin, AJ and Howie all standing there waiting for the elevator to come down. "Nick, run!" I hissed at him, and did a 180 in the lobby. I started towards the stairs and hoped I could run the 6 sets in order to beat them up. Yeah right Brian, dream on. As we ran at full speed I was beginning to wish I had made a will...