[Karie]

It took four weeks for Nick to call me. Even then he didn’t call me, he texted me. He said he felt weird calling me and didn’t have my new e-mail address.

So he texted me.

He texted me to tell me that he was going to be in Nashville for a few days.

R u still up for grabbing a bite to eat?

It took me a few hours to reply to him. Sure, I told him that I was busy and didn’t get the message until I replied but I contemplated on if I should reply or not.

I even went to my mother for advice who told me I would be, and I quote, “a god damn fool to turn him down.”

I tried not to think about him after our visit in Los Angeles. I published the short piece about the guys working on a new album. It was only a 10 inch piece but big enough to please my editors who assigned it to me.

I tried my best not to think about him.

But everything I do, somehow leads me to think about him.

A co-worker had a baby shower last week for the little girl she’s having soon and I could barely make it through it without thinking about Nick.

I heard a song the other day that I had to review and it made me think of him.

Everything makes me think of him and I hate it.

I hate that I told him that I was still up for a bite to eat and to let me know he was in town.

He’s here. Now.

I’m sitting here at the Hard Rock waiting for him to come so that we could eat and I don’t know what to do after we’re done eating. If it were up to me, we would sit here and eat forever just so we wouldn’t have to decide what’s next or hurt each other or anything else.

I tried my best not to give him the wrong impression by my clothing. I wore a pair of black dress pants and a white buttoned up shirt. It’s what I wore to the office today and to an interview. I wasn’t going to dress up for Nick.

I tucked my hair behind my ears and looked up, seeing him walking towards our table that was in the back corner. Great. He was dressed up. Nice jeans and shirt that was similar to mine. Great, we matched. He thought this was a date, I’m sure.

“Hey,” he said, sitting down across from me. “How have you been?”

Small talk. Great.

“Good,” I said, taking a sip of my Sprite that I had already ordered. “Had an interview today with Carrie Underwood and so I basically left the office and came straight here.”

“Still work late nights?” he asked as I shook my head.

“Not unless there’s something I’m covering that’s late or has a specific deadline time,” I said as he nodded. “So, how are you?”

“Better.”

“Better than the last time I saw you?” I asked as he smiled. “Please tell me that you’re doing better.”

“I’m doing a lot better,” Nick said as the waitress came up to get his drink order. I watched him as he ordered a water and looked back at me. “I’ve been seeing a therapist, talking about everything.”

“Everything?”

“The baby, yeah,” he said as I tried not to smile, but I couldn’t help it. “It’s really helping.”

“I forgot to ask, but how is Becca?” I asked as Nick shrugged. “You haven’t talked to her?”

“Not since she had the baby,” he said. “The last I heard, she transferred to N.Y.U., so I don’t know.”

We sat there in silence until the waitress brought Nick his water and took our order. We both watched as she walked away and looked back at one another.

We still didn’t know what to say.

“So I brought you something,” he finally said, pulling a CD out of the shoulder bag that he had with him.

“What is it?” I asked, taking the CD from him. My name was written on it with a Sharpie.

“It’s songs that I’ve written,” he said as I looked at him. “About everything.”

“Are you singing them?”

“Some, with the guys. A few have been recorded by other people,” he said as I nodded. “I just wanted you to have them. It’s probably the best way to understand what I was thinking and feeling.”

“Thanks,” I smiled, sticking the CD case into my purse. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I was burning a disc for someone else and so I figured that I would put all the songs that I wrote about stuff on one for you,” he said as I smiled again. “So you been busy since LA?”

“Yeah, pretty much like always,” I chuckled. “Just doing the usual stuff.”

“I didn’t get a chance to ask before but what about the other part of your life?” he asked as I stared at him. “You seeing anybody?”
Great. Now he was asking this.

“I was for a little while, but it didn’t work out,” I said, taking a sip of my drink. Of course he asked me why it didn’t work out. “Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“We tried to move in together and he was a nice guy and I liked him, but my career got in the way,” I said as Nick shook his head. “He didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t always home by a certain time and –”

“He wasn’t me,” Nick said as I glared at him.

“Well I didn’t say that –”

“You didn’t have to –”

“Nick, I’m not doing this,” I smiled. “I told you in L.A. that I wasn’t go that route again.”

“Just because you admit that the guy wasn’t me doesn’t mean that we’re going to go back to your place and fuck our brains out,” he said as I looked away. “I respect your wishes.”

I couldn’t believe he was saying this to me.

“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms across my chest. “The connection that we shared wasn’t there with him. He didn’t make me feel like you made me feel.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” he said as I rolled my eyes.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said as the waitress brought us our food. We both watched her until she left and looked back at one another.

“It means you still want what we had.”

“Stop beating around the bush,” I said as Nick looked up from his plate and smiled at me. “This isn’t just a little innocent bite to eat, is it?”

“Can we just eat?” he asked, looking at me. “Pass the mustard, please.”

I rolled my eyes, handing him the mustard and started preparing my burger to eat. This was going to be the longest dinner in the history of the world…
I was sure of it.

[/Karie]

[Nick]

Karie is as stubborn today as she was the last time we ate here, when she insisted that she paid. Again, I couldn’t fight her and she paid for our dinner.

“You’re stubborn,” I said as she smiled at me, walking down the steep hill in front of the Hard Rock. “The guy is supposed to pay.”

“My treat,” she said, turning to face me. “Now what?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked as she crossed her arms across her chest. She knew I had a plan. I couldn’t keep anything from her.

“What’s next?” she asked. “I know you and you have something up your sleeve.”

“Come back to my hotel with me,” I finally said as she shook her head. “Fine, let’s go walk out by the river.”

“Fine,” she said as we started walking down to the river banks. She sat down on some concrete steps, watching the sun set in the horizon. I stood there for a minute and finally sat down next to her, not saying anything.

What could I say without her biting my head off for thinking I was trying to get her back?

“You’re thinking,” I said as she continued to stare at the sunset. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m trying to think about what I want to say to you,” she whispered as I nodded and looked off in the distance like she was.

“You know how hard I’ve worked to get where I am right now,” she said, not looking at me. “How much I had to overcome just to get here today.”

“I know, I remember everything you told me,” I said. I couldn’t help but move a strand of hair out of her face that the wind had blown.

“Then why do you keep causing me to jeopardize it?” she asked, looking at me. “Nick, if I wasn’t an entertainment journalist, and just reported political news or if I wasn’t a journalist at all, I would fall victim for you.”

“Fall victim for me?” I asked, wanting to laugh.

“Your charm, your smile, your sense of humor and your… just, you being you,” she said. “That’s what I fell in love with the first time and I never got over that, but I can’t let it jeopardize what I’ve worked so hard for.”

I didn’t know what to say. I just kept staring at her.

“I almost lost it because of you before and I don’t want to risk that again,” she said as I nodded. “I can’t risk that.”

“What if I found you a job writing about entertainment where they didn’t care who you were with?” I asked as she shook her head.

“It’s still unethical,” she said. I could tell that she was about to start crying. Tears were welling up in her eyes.

“I didn’t want to meet up with you to make you cry,” I said as she turned to face me. “I just… I hated you so much until I walked into that room and I kept trying to hate you until I couldn’t anymore. That’s when I showed up at your hotel room.”

“You didn’t try hard enough,” she whispered.

“This thing, it’s stronger than both of us,” I replied back, wiping a tear from her cheek. “Tell me that you don’t miss me.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Tell me, Karie –”

“I think we both need to go,” she said, standing up. I stood up and looked at her. “You go back to your hotel and I’m going home. I have writing to do.”

“You run when you get scared,” I said as she began walking up the steps. “Karie,” I said, rushing up behind her. “Listen to me,” I said as she stopped to face me.

“What?”

“Just go home and listen to the CD,” I said. “After listening to it, if you still can’t go back then, we’ll just be friends.”

“Nick,” she said, placing her hand on the side of my cheek. “We could never just be friends and you know it.”

I stood there, watching her as she walked away. I didn’t move or say anything.

What else could I say? The girl was right. We could never just be friends.

[/Nick]