Chapter Seven

“Oh my god.” Jamie whispered as she moved her finger down in her Mountain Dew, taking the ring out and looked at it, “When did you get a ring?”

“Back in 2000.” Nick said as Jamie looked up at him, “Never got to use it.”

“It’s beautiful.” Jamie said as Nick took the ring from her, licking the Mountain Dew off of it and whipped it on his towel, before lifting her hand up and looked back up at her.

“So will you marry me?” Nick whispered as Jamie smiled, “If you say no again then like I seriously might cry.”

“Yes, I’ll marry you.” Jamie said as they both started to laugh and Nick slipped the ring on her finger before she leaned over, hugging him tightly, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I never stopped.”

“Me either.” Nick whispered as Jamie began laughing again, “Now we’ve just got to tell our families.”

“That’s great. My sister dies and I tell my parents I’m getting married.” Jamie said as they stopped hugging, “And you’ve got tell yours a lot more than I gotta tell mine.”

“Dude, god don’t remind me.” Nick said as he looked down, shaking his head, “Hell, I never saw him.”

“You will.” Jamie said as she gave him a little kiss on the lips, “We better get back over to Tampa.”

“Yeah, we better. We’ve got a lot of stuff to talk about.” Nick said as Jamie smiled, looking down at her ring, “I bought it for you before -”

“Before what?” Jamie asked, looking back up at him.

“I was going to ask you to marry me when I found out you were pregnant and everything got messed up.” Nick whispered, “And I kept the ring because I believed we would get back together one day.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

“I did too, I just didn’t want to believe it.” Jamie said as Nick smiled, “But we are now.”

“Yes we are and I couldn’t be happier.”

“Me either.”

“Now, get your cute little ass up and get dressed.” Nick said as Jamie giggled, before kissing him slowly.

_____________________________________

“Okay.” Jamie said as her and Nick set in her car outside of her parents house a little while later, “You called your parents and they are coming up tomorrow?”

“Yes.” Nick said, “And now we have to tell your parents.”

“Yes.”

“Your father is going to kill me.”

“Yeah.”

“And like Dylan is in the house there.”

“Yes.” Jamie said as she looked over at Nick, “You okay?”

“Fine.” Nick said, looking over at her smiling, “Let’s do this.”

“Okay.” Jamie said as she reached in the backseat, getting her bag. They both got out of the car, and started to walk up to the front door when her mother opened it up.

“Jamie - ” Mrs. Marshall started to say when she saw Nick, “Oh Nick, wow, what are you doing here?”

“With Jamie.” Nick said as Mrs. Marshall looked at her daughter.

“Yeah, um, we need to talk mom.” Jamie said as she smiled and they walked into the house, “Where’s Dylan?”

“He’s upstairs in your room taking a nap.” Mrs. Marshall said as she looked back at Nick, “What’s going on?”

“Where’s Dad?”

“In the living room.”

“Come on.” Jamie said as she took both Nick and her mother by the hand, pulling them into the living room, where Mr. Marshall was sitting, looking over some insurance policies, “Dad -”

“Oh you’re back.” Mr. Marshall said as he looked up to see Nick stand there, “Nick.”

“Hey sir.” Nick said as he gave a little wave.

“Jamie, what is he doing here?”, her father asked, as he gave her a intense look.

“Well, that’s what I needed to tell you.” Jamie said as she looked at her mother, “Will you sit down?”

“Okay.” Mrs. Marshall said as she sat down on the sofa and Jamie looked over at Nick, taking his hand and looked back at her parents.

“I ran into Nick like a month ago here at the airport and we met back up in Los Angeles, when I went to sell the script.” Jamie said as she took a deep breath, “And well we’ve gotten back together.”

“You’ve gotten back together?” Mr. Marshall asked as he looked at Nick and then at Jamie, “Even after everything this boy put -”

“And he asked me to marry him,” she said as she held her hand up to show them the ring, “And I said yes.”

“Oh my god.” Mrs. Marshall said as she put her hand over her mouth.

“Are you out of your mind?!?” Mr. Marshall asked as he looked at Nick and then at Jamie, “Is this because of Dylan?”

“No, it’s because I love her everything that caused us to break up in the first place was all a mistake and we were young and stupid.” Nick said, “Plus since Michelle, well - you know, Dylan needs a home.”

“In hotel rooms?” Mr. Marshall asked as Nick rolled his eyes and Jamie looked at her father.

“Hello? I have a life and a job, I’m not giving that up. He won’t be in hotel rooms all of the time and traveling all of the time.” Jamie said, “And -”

“And it’s not like I just decided I wanted to marry her. I bought that ring two years ago to ask her and then we broke up.” Nick said, “We haven’t talked about everything that’s going to happen but I’m telling my parents about Dylan tomorrow and we’re going to go from there.”

“We’ve been together since we were like teenagers, except for a two year break, but -” Jamie started to say as her father interrupted her.

“A break-up that was because he wanted you to have an abortion.” Mr. Marshall said as Nick scrunched his face up and looked down, “And you want to marry him?”

“We were young and stupid. He’s glad that I didn’t.” Jamie said as her mother just sat there in shock.

“Marianne, are you gonna say any damn thing?” Mr. Marshall said, looking over at his wife as she shrugged her shoulders.

“If this is what she wants.” Mrs. Marshall said, “And this makes her happy, then I say go for it. Just don’t rush into it.”

“We’re not.” Nick said as he started to laugh, “I promise.”

“Marrying a rodeo cowboy.” Mr. Marshall muttered as Nick cracked up laughing, “You better not run off to Vegas.”

“We’re not.” Jamie said as she laughed and walked over, hugging her mother and then her father, “I promise. Now, I’m gonna take Nick up to see Dylan.”

“Okay.” Mrs. Marshall said as Jamie smiled, taking Nick’s hand and walking him over to the stairs.

“I hope she knows what she’s doing and not making another mistake.” Mr. Marshall said as he shook his head.

____________________________________________

“Okay I’m nervous.” Nick said as he stood there, “Like yo, what do I say?”

“Well he doesn’t talk in real complete sentences much.” Jamie said a she started to laugh.

“I mean who am I? Like ‘Hey I’m Nick.’ What?” Nick asked as Jamie shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know. That’s what confuses me. ”

“Me too.” Nick said as he took a deep breath, “Okay I’m ready.”

“Okay.” Jamie said as they leaned in and gave each other a little kiss. Jamie took a deep breath and opened her bedroom door slowly, walking in to see Dylan laying there on her bed, holding onto his little blanket, asleep, “There he is.”

“Lemme see.” Nick whispered as he walked over to the bed and looked down at him, “Whoa.”

“What?”

“This is scary.”

“What?”

“Just I dunno, it’s weird.” Nick said as he squatted down and looked at him, “He’s like ours.”

“Uh yeah.” Jamie said as she started to laugh a little and walked over beside Nick, and squatted down next to the bed with him, “He looks like both of us.”

“Yeah he does. He’s cute.”

“Yeah he is.”

“We did good, huh?”

“You’re crazy.”

“Yeah I know.” Nick said as he started to laugh a little, leaning over to give her a little kiss, “You know, like he doesn’t even realize what’s going on with him really. Like the parents he knew got killed and now he has two more.”

“Yeah I know.” Jamie said as she moved his hair out of his face, “He needs a haircut.”

“Nah. Leave it like it is.”

“He’s gonna look like a little girl.”

“No he’s not.” Nick said as he started to laugh a little, “Remember the night you got pregnant?”

“Yes.” Jamie whispered.

“Who would have known that we made that.” Nick said as he shook his head lightly, “It’s amazing.”

“Yeah I know. You know, we do need to talk about things.” Jamie said as she looked over at Nick, “Like we’re together now, but what’s going to happen?”

“Well, right now I’m gonna be away a lot because I’m promoting and then I’m doing some shows.” Nick said, “Like next weekend I’ll be back.”

“So we just stay where we are, like our places.”

“Yeah, right. When things slow down and me and the guys start back recording, we can get our own place somewhere or something. I don’t know. I mean you work in Orlando. You can’t drive a hour to work every single day.” Nick said, “Unless you just want to get a bigger place, apartment or something there.”

“Yeah I guess so.” Jamie said, “I mean it doesn’t really matter.”

“Well your place is kind of small and like when I’m home, I’ll be with you and then there’s Dylan -”

“Yeah.” Jamie said, “So get a bigger place in Orlando, so to stay in during the week.”

“Right. See this is working good so far.” Nick said, “I just hate being away all the time.”

“Maybe on weekends we can come see you.”

“Yeah maybe, depends on where I am, like if I’m in Europe, well no.” Nick whispered as Dylan started to move a little, “When do you want to get married?”

“I don’t know.” Jamie said as she started to laugh a little and looked over at Nick, “What about you?”

“On our anniversary.” Nick said, “December 2nd. The day we met.”

“Hmm, I thought we said we weren’t going to rush it?” Jamie asked as Nick shrugged his shoulders.

“Hell I’ll probably be busy then anyway I think I am.”

“How about next year, December 2, 2003?” Jamie asked as Nick smiled, “That work?”

“That way it can be perfect.”

“Yes.”

“Then we wouldn’t be rushing it?”

“Nope.”

“It’s perfect.” Jamie said as she leaned up to kiss him, moving onto her knees on the floor, and hugged him, “I’m glad we’re back together.”

“Me too.” Nick whispered as he kissed the side of her neck lightly, “Me too.”