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Still holding onto Mandy, Nick led her into the room. In theory, she should have defiantly snatched her arm away, however for the moment she didn’t seem to care.
“Sit down, take a seat,” AJ gestured towards a couch.
Nick walked over to the couch. Mandy sat down. She looked around the room she had fled from only a mere hour before and supressed a shudder. Everything was so unusual and the air hung heavy with anxiety. Despite what common sense told her, she couldn’t help wondering if things would have been better if she had just stayed with Dan, just kept her mouth closed. Meanwhile, Nick skipped the couch and began pacing around the room.
“Stop it! You’re acting like a caged animal. Sit down and tell me what happened,” AJ demanded.
After sending an offended glare in AJ’s direction, Nick settled down on the edge of a chair, although his posture suggested he was as tightly wound as a clock, ready to springto his feet in an instant.AJ, in turn, leaned up again the wall, facing the two of them. “So...”
“Well,” Nick began in a conversational tone, “you know how every action movie has a scene where evil, sinister guys in black tailgate some poor random guy while busting caps through the back window?”
“Um, no. Nick, what’s your point?”
“My point is, someone fucking tried to kill us!” Nick exclaimed, jumping to his feet.
AJ’s jaw dropped open. Well, that wasn’t the answer he was expecting. Damn. Just what he needed. Now the rest of the guys were going to be up his butt not only about the whole Mandy thing, but also about little Nicky getting a bit too close to some fire power. “You what? You got shot at?” AJ rubbed his forehead in amazement. This was some serious shit. Security was going to kill him, if Brian didn’t first. “Damn girl. Maybe you’ve got yourself a reason to be so scared,” he said to Mandy. “Are you both ok?”
“No Jay, we’re dead,” Nick said sarcastically. “What kind of question is that?” he scoffed, “Are we ok? Gesh.”
AJ narrowed his eyes, “Shut up Nick. How do you want me to react? It’s not everyday I get stuck in the middle of a James Bond flick. Fuck you.”
Already high-strung from the unlikely events, Nick was quick to be baited. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I was out there, while you were sitting here in your nice safe hotel room. James Bond my ass. Try Martha Stewart.”
AJ clenched his teeth together, biting back his comments. No reason for the f-word to fly anymore than it already had. With a deep breath he said, “Nick, that’s not the point. Can we please talk about what is important?”
Nick shrugged. “Fine.”
Rubbing his chin, AJ thought about how childish Nick could act at times. He went from being a responsible adult to a sulky ten year old in a matter of seconds. It was frustrating. Even more frustrating when he was being sullen when important issues were involved -- like their lives, apperently. “Ok. Are we in any type of danger? I wasn’t there, as you kindly pointed out, so I really have no clue what’s going on.” AJ figured someone had to keep a calm rational head.
Nick crossed his arms. “I don’t know either. I don’t even know who this girl really is,” he stuck out a thumb in Mandy’s direction, who had been sitting silently the whole time.
“Hm. Well maybe we should be questioning her, instead of each other. Mandy? Care to share?”
Mandy frowned, not happy that attention had once again shifted onto her. “What?”
“You know what. I’m not going to pry information out of you like a child, which you’re obviously not,” AJ said calmly.
Nick glared at AJ, annoyed by how rational and composed his friend sounded. Couldn’t he act at least a bit freaked out?
“Fine,” she sunk lower into the couch, subconsciously imitating Nick’s earlier reaction to AJ’s demanding questions. “You want to know if we’re in danger. To be honest, maybe. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell with these guys. But I do know if I stay here too long, that maybe will become a yes.”
“Why exactly are we in danger?” Nick asked confused.
“Because I’m here,” Mandy replied simply. She continued quickly before anyone could say anything else, “Look, I offered to leave. That offer is still willingly on the table. I actually would rather leave.”
“No.”
“Well..”
The two men spoke up at the same time. AJ smacked Nick on the back side of the head. “No. The answer is no. You don’t have anywhere to go.” As she opened her mouth to argue, he fired, “Where? Hmm? Where are you going to go?” When she paused for a second to think, AJ smiled grimly. “See. I told you. Don’t even bother to think up a lie, it won’t work.”
Mandy restrained the urge to stick her tongue out at him or flick him off, and crossed her arms instead.
“Why are we in danger if you’re here?” Nick wondered, trying to understand what was going on.
“Because I... well, because I did something to make someone really mad.”
“Who?”
“It doesn’t matter. Someone who’s in a position to hurt me, and hurt you to get to me. So listen, just let me go and I’ll leave town. Go on with your lives, doing whatever you do. Forget this ever happened.”
“You sound like you’re involved with the mafia. You walk off the set of the ‘Godfather’ or something?”
Instead of smiling at Nick’s joke, Mandy just stared at him silently. Nick shrugged. He was tired of the twenty questions; all he really wanted was some food. AJ didn’t look like he was going to come to any solutions soon, so Nick figured he might as well take a swing at it. Of course, he didn’t want anything to do with AJ’s charity cases, but if it meant eating even five minutes sooner, he was all for it.
Nick cocked his head as he concluded his thought process. “Hey Jay, how long are we staying here?”
“Just tonight. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, if getting out of town will be safer, why don’t we just take her with us?”
“No!” Mandy objected.
Ignoring her, AJ said thoughtfully, “That might work.”
“Hello? Don’t talk like I’m not here! I’m not some... some toy you can drag place to place. It’s not like you can stuff me in a box and take me with you!” Mandy cried angrily.
The two men both turned to observe at her. The two silent gazes were unnerving. Her eyes darted nervously between them. They weren’t really serious. Were they? Obviously they were, because after a moment, Nick said to AJ, “You know, we’re going to have to run this by the other guys.”
“Yeah. Kevin is going to freak. So is management,” AJ made a face at the last word.
“So? When has either of those stopped you before? I swear, if what you’ve done in the past hasn’t given Kevin a heart attack or gotten us fired, nothing will.”
“What I’ve done? Lets talk about the time you had those three girls and....”
“Wait.”Mandy cut in forcefully.“Who are these other guys? Why do you have to run anything by them? And what the hell is ‘management.’”
AJ and Nick looked at each other. Nick shrugged as if to say ‘You got us into this. This is your problem.’
“That’s not important. You keep some secrets, so will we. For now at least,” AJ finally said.
Mandy scowled but decided to say nothing. Instead she silently decided that after tonight, she would be gone. She’d leave sometime the next day. There was no way she was going anywhere with these two.
New Beginnings