*1 Week Later*
"Okay, you guys ready?" the man yelled. The guys were holding a press confrence to address what happened.
"Yeah," Brian said knowing that they couldn't turn back now. They needed to adress this issue and they needed to do it now. The guys walked into the room of awaiting reporters. Lights from the flashes of the cameras filled the room. They took a few pictures and decided to get down to business.
"Okay, I'm sure you that you guys heard that Nick got mixed up in some problems," Brian said, with a look of disbelief on his face.
"We are here to address them," AJ explained, "to keep rumors from forming. That's easy in this sort of situation."
"There is no easy way to say this or even explain it," Kevin began, "as we speak, Nick is sitting in a jail cell beginning payment of concequences of the actions he took. His crime, well, he physically abused his girlfriend and more recently, he kidnapped his son."
"This is something that we knew would only get worse if we didn't make him pay the consequences. We weren't going to bail him out of this, we love him, he's family to us, we want him to get help so that he's not angry and so that he can deal with it when he does get angry," Brian explained.
"How do you think this is going to effect the group?" a reporter asked.
"Well, that's not our main concern right now. We want Nick to realize that just because he is a star, that doesn't mean that he can get away with everything," Kevin said.
"You guys have been through so much already, do you think that your fans will be able to handle this?" the reporter asked.
"They were great with the AJ dilema, and I think that they are mature enough as well as understanding. I, as well as these guys, believe that our true fans will remain with us. If not, then okay because then Nick will get a taste of real life. I think thats what he needs," Brian explained.
"Musically, what are you guys doing right now?" Another reporter asked.
"That's the last thing we're worried about right now. We just want Nick to get some counciling and maybe some anger management classes. This could end up to be a real problem," Kevin said.
"How long has this been going on?" wondered yet another reporter.
"Well, it was just discovered by AJ not to long ago. We couldn't do anything because we weren't a part of the problem. His girlfriend had to press charges otherwise he wasn't required to do anything," Brian told them.
"It didn't look like he was doing this. There were no warning signs, he didn't express any anger that he couldn't control. His girlfriend seemed to be happy. There was really no reason for us to have suspisions, nothing really seemed wrong," Kevin added.
"If there was any reason that Nick gave, we would have acted on it. There would have been no way that we would let it get this far and this serious," Howie said.
"AJ, how did you find out that this was going on?" a reporter asked turning to AJ.
"Me and his girlfriend are really good friends and I guess she figured that she needed to tell someone that this was going on. I just happened to be there when she realized that," AJ answered.
"You guys said he kidnapped his son. Where is the baby now?"
"He was safely returned to his mother and he is with her right now," Howie said.
"Have any of you guys talked to him?"
"I have and I think he's really messed up. He doesn't see a problem with what he did. He thinks that he was right and that his girlfriend desirved all of this. In my mind, he's at a really low point and we need to get him out of it. He could have really hurt her and this is something that we need to do," AJ said.
"This is kind of an attitude adjustment for him. He needs this," Howie added.
"So you guys want him in jail?"
"We want him to pay the consequences, whatever they may be. He will be doing something for his anger problem. Things will be better," Kevin said.
"Jail isn't a place we wanted him to end up. He did this to himself. Nick knew where he could, and did, end up," Brian added.
"How do you guys feel about this?"
"Well, we still can't completely believe that this happened. We never could have imagined anything to this magnitude was going to happen. Nick was never the kind of guy that would do this," replied Brian.
"We know that he is going to be ok. Like Brian said, we are still in disbelief. It's hard to believe that he did this, but he did so we have to help him," Kevin said.
"I'm a little sickend by what he did. It pisses me off to think that there are people out there that have no better way to let out their fustrations. I'm just glad that we're getting him help," AJ confessed.
"Most importantly, we know that he can get help and thats what we want," Howie concluded. The guys got up from their seats and went to the backstage area.
"How'd it go?" Jen asked.
"Alright," AJ said walking up to Jen.
"That's good, how did they react?"
"They were surprised, but we knew they would be."
Chapter 9