"Turning slowly as if in a dream, her eyes met his beautiful baby blues and suddenly his strong hands were pulling her towards him, his lips pressing against hers, parting her mouth, seeking her tongue urgently and sending her into a vortex of sexual desire, spiraling out of control.
"Nicky…” Corinne breathed, in between kisses. “Corinne…” Nick whispered back, capturing her mouth again. Then he suddenly pulled away to look into her eyes. “Should we talk about Kevin?”
“Let’s not talk.”
Their union of passionate kisses continued until the elevator ding! went off to alert them the door was about to open.
“Seven.” Was all Corinne said. When the door opened and no one was there, Nick pushed the “7” button and continued to kiss his newfound lover-to-be.
Ding! The elevator opened to the magical 7th floor. The two rushed down the hall, giggling, eager to get to Corinne's room. She fumbled through her purse for her room key card.
“It’s got to be in here!” Corinne said, frustrated. She wanted to be alone with Nick and do nasty things to his body…
Nick was laughing at her, nibbling her earlobes, rubbing his hands down her arms, sending goosebumps all over her body.
“Oops!” Nick “accidentally” pulled the strap of her dress down to reveal the top of her breast. She wasn’t wearing a bra and it was obvious…
“Nick, not yet!” She hissed, but giggling at the same time. Nick laughed and fondled her half-clad breast through the material.
“Here it is!” Corinne exclaimed when she finally produced the key.
“Thank God!” He breathed.
They fell inside the room, kissing, caressing and stripping each other’s clothes off in a hurry. Naked and eager to consummate their union, they rolled around on the bed, giggling, still very horny and drunk; drunk with alcohol and desire for one another.
Corinne felt Nick’s hard cock against her thigh and wanting it inside of her immediately, she pushed Nick on his back onto the bed and sat on top of him. Her long hair fell down onto his chest as she prepared to impale herself onto his hard dick. Just before she could accomplish her task, however, the phone next to the bed started ringing loudly.
“Fuucckk!” Nick yelled, wanting nothing to spoil the mood. He was hot for her and ready for her to start riding him— now.
Corinne giggled at his protest and was prepared to ignore the ringing. Who knew she was here anyway? Only Julia and she could wait. And then suddenly she remembered she had given the hotel number to her mom in the case of an emergency.
“Oh, God, Nick…” Corinne said just as the phone stopped ringing. She lifted her leg over him and collapsed on the bed next to him.
“What?” He asked, turning towards her, his erection quickly fading. He was concerned something was really wrong.
“Wait a sec…” Corinne watched the phone and sure enough within a minute, the red light flashed indicating she had a voice mail message.
“I gave my mom this number in case of an emergency. My sister, Megan is due in two weeks with her first child; she’s 39 so she’s considered high-risk plus she’s had two miscarriages before this. We’re really close and she asked if I would be there for the delivery so I made my mom to promise to call me if she went into labor. I would have had her call me on my cell, except Kevin…” She looked at him and realized she was giving him TMI: too much information.
“Corinne, it’s okay. Go ahead and see if it’s your mom. I’ll wait.” Even though he would still love nothing more than to fuck her brains out, he cared about Corinne and he also understood about family. He had just gotten back from seeing his own and even though they fought and didn’t always get along, he understood the need to take care of them and make sure they were okay.
Corinne clutched the hotel bedspread to her naked body as she listened to the voice mail message. To her surprise, she heard a male, not female voice on the other end:
“Rinna, hey, it’s me, Kevin. I hope it’s okay I’m calling you here. I got the number from Julia. You have probably figured out by now that you left your cell phone at my house last night. I would like to give that you, but I really called to tell you that I ..."
Corinne hung up. She couldn’t hear this right now. This was not what she had expected to hear at all.
Tears unwittingly welled up in Corinne’s green eyes and she tried to stem the tide with her hands, but it was no use; the dam broke and she started to cry uncontrollably.
“Oh my God, Corinne. Is your sister okay?” Nick asked, fearing the worst. Maybe her sister had a miscarriage or worse.
“It wasn’t about her. Can you just hold me, Nick?” she said and he did. He held her, letting her cry it out.
He knew now that it must have been Kevin’s voice on the other end of that voice mail message and not her mom’s. What screwed up timing he had. But maybe it was for the best… life was funny sometimes…
Finally Corinne pulled herself together and sat back, drying her eyes.
“Oh my God, Nick, I’m so sorry. You know who that was, don’t you?”
Nick nodded.
“I am really sorry. How insensitive of me. I would totally understand if you want to leave right now…”
This time Nick shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere. I meant what I said earlier about I’m here if you want to talk and I think right now you really need to talk. So, spill it. Don’t worry about my feelings— I'm a Carter; I can take it.”
Corinne laughed and knew what he was talking about. She had meet Aaron, BJ, Angel and Leslie a few months ago at one of the rare parties she had attended with Kevin and “the boys”. It was Aaron and Angel’s 17th birthday party. In fact, she and Kevin had just started dating two week’s prior to that party she remembered. They had met on November 25, 2004, the day after Thanksgiving. But she knew a little about Nick’s family and their history and knew they put the “d” in dysfunctional, but she also knew that they loved each other and would always be there for one another. Nick was a good brother to them and a good friend to her right now.
Nick respectfully looked away while she walked by him to go into the bathroom and put her clothes back on. Corinne pulled her hair into a ponytail with a rubber band she had in her purse and frowned at her mascara-stained face. She dabbed at her eyes a little, but when she couldn't get all it off, she thought, screw it; he’s already seen me at her worse, why fix it now? Walking back into the room, she noticed that Nick was sitting on the bed with his jeans on, but no shirt. God, he still looked so damn sexy… focus, Corinne, focus, she told herself.
Corinne plopped herself in the armchair near the bed and folded her legs up under her.
“So, Nick, are you sure you want to hear all this? It’s a long story…”
“Go for it.” Nick motioned with his arm. “You have the floor.”
Corinne sighed. “Okay, well, we’ve had problems off and on throughout our relationship, but we always worked on them and everything was fine. But this, this was different and I guess it started only a few days ago. As you know, Kevin was on Broadway playing Billy Flynn in the play ‘Chicago’ a year ago and they asked him to do it again, but this time in London.” She looked at Nick and realized he didn’t know about Kevin going to London because he had been in Florida. Nick had told her earlier that it had been a few weeks since they had spoken.
She continued, “Well, of course, he talked to me about it and told me it was what he really wanted and I was very supportive of it. I really didn’t think it would be a problem. I mean, I’m pretty independent – I’m a writer after all; you have to be and I had already experienced the good, the bad and the ugly of him being with the Backstreet Boys— no offense…”
“None taken. Go on.” He said.
“…and all that comes with it, you know 'Hollywood' stuff. Well, as you know, that’s not my thing. I mean, I grew up having a 'normal' life and I’m not that much into celebrities or fame or fortune or any of that crap— I like well, things fairly simple, uncomplicated, but I knew what I was getting into when I met Kevin or at least I thought I did. You know, you fall in love, you think you can conquer the world…” Nick nodded, thinking back to his time when he had first started dating Paris…
“Okay, so things were great and then Kevin leaves for London and suddenly I’m a wreck. Within a day, I'm going out of my mind! I can't concentrate and I'm paranoid he's going to cheat on me or leave me and never come back. I just want to be with him. I mean, this all happened within hours of him leaving! And it was so not like me! I couldn’t figure it out until suddenly it occurs to me that my past is coming back to haunt me. There were two relationships I had before I met Kevin that were evoking these horrible feelings from me. I won’t go into a lot of details, but basically there was Craig whom I thought was a workaholic and that was why I only saw him on the weekends, but it turns out he was a serial cheater after two years of wasted time, well you know… and then there was Keith who enlisted in the military after we became engaged and was shipped off to Germany and I never saw again. We kept in touch for a few months, but then I realized that I had to go on with my life and I ended it. It turns out he never really wanted to get married anyway… oh, God, Nick, I’m sorry to burden you with all this shit…” Corinne put her head in her hands realizing how screwed up her life was… or at least how it sounded…
“Corinne, don’t worry about it. I told you I’m here for you. Go on.”
“Alright, so basically, I get on the next flight to London. I somehow survived that 8-hour flight with my sanity in tact because I knew that I needed to talk to Kevin and tell him what I was feeling. And then I arrive at the theatre only to find him in a flurry of activity amidst rehearsals, costume changes, shouting directors, scurrying actors, extras, crew members everywhere. He was stressed and not exactly happy to see me. I realized it was opening night and he was experiencing very high stress, but he didn’t realize how high stressed I was at that moment and how much I needed him. He thought he could just do his play and get back to me and all would be fine, but it was not all fine— for me, anyway. And when I saw the women…” she took a big breath, forcing herself to continue, “… the women practically throwing themselves at him— the ones in the play, the ones in the audience, the fans… well, I was used him getting attention from women before, of course, since he was famous after all, but this was different. This was so like any man would have to be made out of stone or gay not to even consider cheating. I mean, my God, Nick, the whole scene just made me sick. I had to get out of there, so I did; I left. I got on the next plane back to the States and went to his house, opened the door with the key he had given me and packed up the few things I kept at his house when I stayed there. After I was done, I sat on his bed, the bed... well..." she paused, not wanting to say the bed we had made love on so many times, but instead she said, "...his bed and felt my heart breaking. I didn't know if I was going to actually leave him or not, but I knew I had to do something. Something had to change. I was sitting there with my face in my hands, contemplating what to do when Kevin walked in. I guess he had gotten a flight that left right after mine did. Anyway, that was last night. Do you want me to go on?"
"Yeah, go on." Nick nodded, interested. She was a wonderful storyteller, he thought. She painted a vivid picture of what had transpired.
Corinne sighed. “Well, when Kevin walked in and saw me sitting there on the bed with my things next to me, he kind of freaked out on me. I mean, I don’t really blame him. I didn’t get a chance to explain to him at the theatre what I was going through and of course, he had never seen that side of me before, so what was he to think? It was my mistake that I had never told him about Craig or Keith. I had wanted to block those memories out of my mind, so I certainly didn’t want to share them with him -- ever, but I realized then that I should have. Had I shared my experiences with him before, he may have understood me a little better and what I was going through, but as it was, well, you can imagine…”
“What happened?” Nick asked.
“Oh, Nick, it was horrible at first. It was like we both lost it and starting yelling at one another, angrily throwing accusations and blaming one another. It was ugly for a few minutes and so weird because neither one of us had ever spoken to each other that way before. I mean, we had fights like most people, but it very mild comparatively and it really bothered both of us. To the point that after a few minutes, we both sat down and cried. We actually cried. It was just so out of character to yell like that and say those awful things and it hurt to realize that we both actually resorted to that kind of behavior. So, we cried and held one another and I finally admitted everything to him— I told him everything I just told you about Craig and Keith and my fears, my frustrations, my trust issues and all my other problems which helped him to understand my current behavior and me as a person. It was wonderful because finally we were able to calmly talk things out between us. He shared things and opened up with me, too, which I really appreciated. And when I asked him if he had ever cheated on me, he told me that he hadn't, even though, of course, he had thoughts of other women sometimes. He also told me he would leave the show if it meant I would stay with him, which touched me. The whole experience, even the fighting, turned out to be the best thing we could have ever gone through because it was so healing for us. Healing for us as couple, as well as individually. I felt like we had both just finished a therapy session or something!" She laughed. "It was our 'road back home' so to speak. And I really needed that; we both really needed that. So, you would think after a life changing experience like that, we would be able to stay together, right? I mean, we hugged and kissed and said how we really felt about each other and I felt closer to Kevin than I had ever felt before and I think he felt the same way about me and then something happened.”
“What?” Nick asked, engrossed.
“Reality hit me. The reality was I didn’t want Kevin to give up on his dreams. I felt bad that he had to leave on opening night -- the most important night of all to run after me when I knew his heart really lay in London, on that stage. One of his dreams was to perform on Broadway again, this time in London, and I wanted him to fulfill that dream. I wanted him to make another album and go back on tour with you guys and do everything that made him happy. And I knew of course, that he loved me and that I also made him happy, but I didn't think I could do it anymore."
"Do what?" Nick asked.
"Do this. Do what I had been doing the past six months: being the girlfriend of Kevin Scott Richardson, a celebrity, a singer, an actor, a star. I loved Kevin, the person, but I didn't want to live that life anymore. It's just not me; it never was. I made it fit me because I cared about Kevin, but after my epiphany that night, I realized it wasn't going to work for me anymore. I had changed; I had become someone else. Someone who wasn't willing to settle anymore. I want to live my life, the life I wanted, not just the life he wanted and I made myself fit into. I just wanted a so-called normal, everyday life. A life without the media, the paparazzi, the parties, the award ceremonies, the concerts, the tours, long hours and late nights, etc., etc. You know all about it, Nick, because you live it and I'm guessing you love it."
"Yeah, I do. But it's not like that all the time, Corinne." He said, but he could understand her point of view.
"Yes, I know that. Kevin had some down time, which was really wonderful for us, but I always knew in the back of my mind that the time would come when we would be apart and that really bothered me. You guys love it because it's what you signed up for; it's what you wanted to with your life. It's not what I wanted to do with my life; it's not my dream. I made Kevin my life, but I didn't want his life, at least not the fame part of it. Nick, I work as a writer for a publishing house in West L.A. where I write books and do some freelancing on the side and I like that. I have written about lives like Kevin's and yours, but not actually lived them until... well, I met Kevin. And I live in an apartment in Glendale, not in a mansion in Beverly Hills. I like being able to stay home if I want or go out if I want and not being recognized or not having to worry about what I look like because I might get my picture taken or have to be patient while Kevin signs autographs or some hot girls want a picture with him or see one more picture of me and Kevin in a magazine with a stupid headline. Don't get me wrong, I've loved most of our time together and I wouldn't trade a minute of it for the world. It's just all the other times when he's Kevin Richardson, the Backstreet Boy or theatre actor or whatever he is to the world, that it's been difficult. I rather it be just him and me all the time, but it's not. It's him and me and the world and it's hard to take. That part just wears on me, that's all. I will say that some of the best parts of our relationship have been when we're just home alone or out with you, AJ, Howie and Brian. I love all of you guys and I will definitely miss those times. I've had a blast!"
Nick smiled. He liked all those times, too. “Corinne, we can still be friends whether you're with Kevin or not."
"Really? You still want to? It won't be awkward?" She looked at him, surprised.
"Well, I don't know about that, but tonight, we were almost more than friends!" Nick laughed.
'Yeah, you're right, although, I definitely don't think Kevin would approve."
"You're right; he wouldn't." Nick was quiet for a minute and then said, "So, did you tell Kevin all of that? All of what you just told me?” He asked, curiously, a little concerned about his friend. Kevin must have been devastated, he thought.
“Yeah, pretty much."
"And what did he say?"
"You know, Nick, he didn't say much. I mean, I think he kind of understood what I was saying and empathized, but I also think that after our fight and the bearing of our souls, he truly thought we were going to stay together. And I don't blame him for thinking that; I would have, too, if I were in his shoes. I wanted to stay together, too; in fact, I still do, but I don't think I can. At least not now; not since I discovered my true feelings about myself, my past and what I really want in life. I think I was in denial for the past six months. So, anyway, Kevin, just stood up, gave me a hug and a kiss and said, 'Well, Rinna, if that's what you really want, then I wish you all the best' and that was it. When I realized that was all he was going to say, I didn't know what else to do so I just said goodbye, picked up my things and left. I didn't know what else to do. In the end, I guess I was expecting him to..."
"Fight for you?" Nick said.
Corinne looked up at him and nodded. "Yes."
"But would it have made a difference if he had?"
She sighed and shook her head. "No, I guess not."
"Women!" Nick shook his head. "You want us to leave, but you want us to beg you not to!"
Corinne looked at him to see if he was serious and when she saw he was smiling, she picked up a pillow and threw it at him.
Nick ducked and laughed. "I don't blame Kevin for letting you go! You bitch!"
"Carter, you are asking for it!" She got up and almost pushed him off the bed, giggling.
Nick was laughing so hard, he fell off the bed on his own.
Corinne couldn't help it and laughed in spite of herself. He looked so ridiculous lying there on the floor, giggling like a little boy.
"You ass!" She threw the pillow at him again, this time hitting him in the face.
"Hey! No fair!" He said.
"You deserved it! Jerk!"
"Yeah, but I made you laugh, didn't I?!"
She couldn't say anything to dispute it; he was right. Damn, if he wasn't a good friend...
Nick finally sobered up, got up and sat on the bed opposite of her.
"OK, about all the crap you just told me..." He laughed and she punched him in the arm, smiling. "No, really, about everything you just told me, Corinne, I’m really sorry you had to go through all that. I really am. All I can say is that we all have shit in our lives we have to go through and hopefully it will make us better people. I know I’m only 25 and I’ve gone though a lot of shit in my life already. And I think I’m a better person, a stronger person; at least I like to think I am. You are a better person now. So, sweetheart, whatever happens, you’ll get through it. You’re stronger. If you want to be with Kevin, be with Kevin. If you don't, don't. It sounds like you know what you want now, so that's the most important thing. Just be happy, okay?" He pulled back a lock of her hair and tucked it behind her ear.
Corinne grabbed his hand and looked into his eyes. "Nick, thank you. Here you were tonight just wanting a piece of ass..."
Nick laughed, "Gee, thanks a lot! You make me sound so shallow!"
"Well, let's be honest..." she smiled at him.
"OK, yeah..." He smirked.
"and I wanted that, too..." she smiled, "but instead, because of that damn phone call, I end up giving you my entire sob story about me and Kevin! What other guy in the world would sit and listen to me ramble on and on about my relationship woes with another man, especially one of his good friends. I can't tell you how much this has meant to me... to have you sit here and listen to me for the past hour or so and be understanding and gentle and oh, God, Nick, if you're not careful, I might fall in love with you next!" She laughed.
"No, I don't have to worry about that because I'm famous, remember?" He teased her and she burst out laughing.
"Touche!" She threw her head back and laughed.
She has a great laugh. I always thought so. Nick smiled and kissed her cheek.
Corinne turned her head so his lips landed on her own and pressed her mouth eagerly against his.
Nick kissed her for the briefest of moments and then pulled away. "Corinne..."
"What? Nick, I still want you." She said honestly.
"And I still want you -- bad. But you need to call Kevin back and resolve things one way or the other. Did he say in his message that he wanted to get back together?"
"I don't know. I hung up before that part. I wasn't ready to hear it."
"And now?"
"I think I am."
"Is it alright if I call you tomorrow morning just to see if everything is okay? When do you check out?"
"I think at noon. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I was going to try to sleep in." She smiled.
Nick gave her hug and said, "Well, goodnight, sweetness. I'll call you here tomorrow, not too early though."
"OK, that sounds good. And Nick..."
"Yeah?"
"Thanks again. Goodnight."
"See ya." He walked to the door and was gone.
Corinne smiled and sighed. What an interesting night. She felt so much better than she had when she first arrived at the party. It felt good to unload all her baggage onto someone. Nick truly was a good friend and she was happy he would be calling her tomorrow. She walked back to the bed, laid down, closed her eyes and as she drifted off to sleep, her thoughts were of Nick and not Kevin.
