Chapter Thirty

Do you remember when you’re little and you get this crush on a little boy that you know? You play MASH and decide on whether you’ll have a mansion, an apartment, a shack, or a house. Then you find out how many kids you’ll have. Oh and don’t forget their names, what your job is, and where you’ll be going on your honeymoon.

That’s what I’ve been doing while sitting here at this meeting, going over the CMT Spring Break special with Rascal Flatts. I keep looking up from my piece of paper, to see Joe Don looking at me. He is really looking cute today and again, wearing a muscle shirt, to show off his arms. He has really nice arms.

Then my mind snaps out of that when I look back down at my piece of paper. Nick and I will be living in a house here in Nashville. We’re having two kids: a little boy named Ashton and a little girl named Rebekah-Lynn. Ashton is from Ashton Kutcher who is simply very hot, and Rebekah-Lynn is from a song by Bryan White. Whenever we have kids, remind me to not tell Nick that’s from a country song okay? He’d never go for it.

Why though, am I sitting here thinking about this? My mind should be on work. I have three of the hottest guys in country music basically sitting across from me, but my mind keeps drifting back to Nick. Well there’s a simple reason for that. I love him. I really do think I want to spend the rest of my life with him.

I’m 99.9 percent sure of that now.

Nick sat there in the airport in Nashville, looking over at a lady holding her little girls’ hand while bitching at baggage claim. The little girl kept looking over at Nick and waving at him. Nick just smiled, and waved back at her. She was really cute. She had dark blonde hair that was in loose curls, pulled up in pigtails on top of her head. She had on some jean overalls and a little pink t-shirt underneath it.

Nick sat there smiling at her and she put her hand up to her lips, blowing him a kiss. That cracked him up, so he decided to blow a kiss back to her. She giggled and tried to hide behind her mother’s leg and Nick laughed, when all of a sudden someone hit him upside the head.

“Come on loser.” Aaron said as Nick refused to look back, and elbowed him in the stomach, “Ugh, damn,” he said as he hit Nick upside the head again, throwing his bag at him, “Punk, what did ya do that for?”

“Because you missed me so much, when you see me, you hit me upside the head?” Nick asked as he stood up, reaching over for one of Aaron’s bags, “Don’t be pulling that stuff with Elisabeth around,” Aaron just rolled his eyes in return, putting his arm around Nick as they started to walk through the airport, “Did you get taller?”

“I’m pimpin’ out man,” Aaron said as he looked at a girl that walked by, “Look at that ass man,” Nick looked over at him, before reaching up and hitting himself the head, “What? You know you looked,”

“Dude, honestly I didn’t look. I already have a ass that I like,” Nick said as Aaron stopped and looked back at Nick’s ass, “Not my ass you stupid little fuck, Elisabeth’s.” Aaron rolled his eyes in return, realizing just how whipped his brother really was. Nick smiled as he walked out of the airport with his little brother, thinking about Elisabeth until Aaron elbowed him and ran way, “You fuck,” he muttered as he started to chase after him.

Elisabeth sat there at her desk that afternoon. The meeting with Rascal Flatts went WAY over the time that they thought that it would. Joe Don kept looking over at her during the entire meeting, which in return made he write down more things that she loved about Nick. They talked about things that would happen while they were down in Daytona and Joe Don seemed way too happy to be working with Elisabeth most of the day Friday, around the beach.

Elisabeth didn’t seem too thrilled about that.

Actually she was thrilled about taking a mini-vacation to the beach with Nick, even if she had to work. Her favorite place to be with Nick was on the beach, sitting and talking. They had only had the chance to do that a few times since they’re schedules were always different and busy. The last time they had the chance to actually be on the beach together was when she went to Key West to visit him, and he talked her into being in the “I Got You” video with him.

She smiled, thinking about that day on the beach and looked down at what she was doing. She was jotting down more ways that she loved him. As of right now, she was on number five hundred and forty-one. It was stupid, but it was a reason she loved him.

She shook her head, realizing what she was doing was pretty sad. It didn’t matter though. She looked over at the picture of her and Nick on her desk, and stared at it. They did make a pretty cute couple. She laughed at something else and then looked away for a minute.

There was always this old saying that her grandmother used to tell her when she was little. She said that people who belonged together looked a-like - or they had some of the same facial features. She never really believed in that because she never thought certain people looked a like, but then again when she thought about it they did. Tim and Faith both had eyes that looked alike. Reba McEntire and her husband both had pretty round faces. Brian and Leighanne both look alike too. They have weird jaw lines. She never thought that theory was true though for one simple fact - her mother and father fit into that category too. They both had the same eyes, just like Tim and Faith, but they were so not meant to be together.

She took a deep breath and looked back over at the picture of her and Nick. They had the same smile. She first noticed it after she had gotten some pictures that she had developed a few weeks after they started dating. His bodyguard at the time had taken it and they were standing in front of the Illinois State Line sign because they were being silly and wanted a picture of it. She noticed they had the same smile. They both had small baby teeth and the same exact smile.

Then she smiled, looking back down at her list, and began writing the next number.

“Dude, this cat keeps staring at me,” Aaron said as he sat there on the sofa, with Bunny staring at him. Aaron stuck his tongue out at him and Bunny hopped down onto the floor and up onto the couch beside him, “Uh, is he gay?”

“Shut up man,” Nick said as he stood there in the kitchen, getting a can Mountain Dew out of the refridgerator. He opened it up, taking a sip and started to walk back into the living as Aaron turned around on the sofa and looked back at him, “What?”

“So have you two did it yet?”

“No,”

“Why not?” Aaron asked as Nick sat down on the chair where Bunny had been sitting a few minutes earlier and propped his feet up on the coffee table, “I mean, you said you’ve got an ass but if you haven’t done anything, then obviously you haven’t tapped that ass -”

“Dude!” Nick yelled as he looked over at his brother in shock. When the hell did he start talking this way anyway? “We will when she’s ready, damn relax.”

“When she’s ready? Dude you’ve known each other 2000 and yo, it’s 2003 -” Aaron said as he paused, and looked over at Nick who was drinking a sip of his Mountain Dew with a smirk on his face, “What did you do?” Nick just smiled in return as he looked over at the TV ignoring him, “Dude you did something, tell me. Please?”

“What the hell makes you think I did something?” Nick asked, looking over at his brother who was holding his hands together, begging him to tell, “I’m not telling you,” Aaron fell down onto the ground, crawling up to Nick as he sat in the chair and continued to beg him, “Dude no.”

“Nick, man come on.”

“No,”

“Nick?”

“No,” Nick said as Aaron started giving him a puppy dog face. Nick rolled his eyes in return, leaning over and sitting the soda can on the coffee table, looking back at his brother. Aaron continued to give him the puppy dog face and Nick laughed at him, looking away, “I went down on her,”

“YOU DID WHAT?!?!”

Elisabeth sat in the mall that night. She looked over at a clock inside of a store across from her to see that it was going on 9:30 p.m. She hadn’t been there too long, but after the show ended she needed to get out of the office and she wasn’t ready to go home. In fact, she wanted to come to the mall. She hadn’t been coming for her usual morning visits. It was sort of hard when she had Nick following her every move and having to be into work earlier also with the awards and now this spring break special coming up.

She took another bite of a M&M cookie that she had bought, and looked up to see a group of girls walk by, stopping to look at a outfit on a store’s display. They were probably around eighteen years old and seemed like they didn’t have a care in the world. Their parents were probably pretty well off and they lived off of them, shopping on their credit cards. It kind of reminded her of the movie Clueless : The three girls who shopped all the time and had their own vocabulary.

Then she began to think about it.

She didn’t have any ‘girlfriends’. The only friends she had were the people at her work, and Nick. She didn’t have any girls’ that she went to for problems. That could be why she talked to Faith Hill that night, the way that she did. She didn’t really have another girl to go to with problems. She was the only female VJ there at CMT, so everybody else was a male.

She watched the girls as they left the window and continued to walk through the mall. She finished eating her cookie, wishing that she had a ‘girlfriend’ to talk to sometimes; someone she could share things about Nick with or get advice. It’s not like she could go to her sister about love advice. Everybody now knew what kind of shape she was in.

Maybe she needed a friend.

Elisabeth opened her apartment door later that night, walking in to see Nick sitting there on the sofa, falling asleep and smiled. She turned around, locking the door back, and sat her things down on the floor beside the door. Maybe Aaron was asleep? She really wouldn’t mind if he was, because she was so tired herself. Then again, she stayed at the mall until a little past eleven o’clock thinking about things.

She walked over to the sofa, crawling up in Nick’s lap and straddling it. He started to wake up from his sleep and opened his eyes, looking at her and smiled. Elisabeth smiled back, leaning over to kiss him on the lips lightly, not even saying anything.

“You’re late tonight,” Nick whispered as he ran his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes, “Whatcha doing so late?”

Elisabeth smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck. She leaned over, kissing him on the lips lightly, whispering against them, “Went to the mall,”

“What for?”

“Thinking about some stuff,”

“Okay,” Nick said as Elisabeth moved her hands down to her shirt, unbuttoning it slowly. Nick looked down, watching her and the moved his eyes back up to hers, and smiled, “What are you doing?”

“She’s stripping, what do you think bro?” Aaron said as both Elisabeth and Nick jumped, looking over at Aaron who was standing in the doorway of the guestroom, “Sup Beth? You’re looking as pretty as ever,” he said with a smile. Nick just rolled his eyes in return.

“Well hey,” Elisabeth said as she pulled her shirt back together, crossing her arms, “Hm, shouldn’t you be in bed?” she asked as she looked at Nick and back at Aaron. The kid looked too much like his brother now.

“Yes, I think I should,” Aaron said as he pointed at them, “Bro, remember, bag it,” he said as he walked back into the guestroom and shut the door. Nick just grunted in return as Elisabeth started to laugh and looked down at him.

“My brother has issues,” Nick said as Elisabeth laughed a little, “I’m so tired baby -”

“Me too, I just wanna go and crawl into bed and go to sleep,” Elisabeth said as she stopped crossing her arms over her chest and leaned over to kiss him lightly on the lips. Nick smiled at her, leaning up to kiss her back as he nodded his head, “Wanna go to bed?”

“Let’s go to bed,” Nick whispered as Elisabeth smiled, climbing off of him and standing up. She took off her shirt, throwing it over on the chair and started to walk up the stairs slowly as Nick sat there watching her and smiled.