PART FIVE



    “Lynn!” Nikki yelled from across the room.
    Lynn rushed in the room and said, “what what?”
    “I can’t find my brush!”
    “Girl don’t tell me that I ran in here thinking that something was wrong and it’s just that you can’t find your brush!”
    Nikki crunched up her face and said, “well, yeah...”
    Lynn looked around the room briefly and then handed Nikki her brush. “Here.”
    Nikki giggled, “I didn’t even think about looking there!”
    “Girl you are warped,” Lynn laughed.
    “I am soooo hungry!”
    Lynn laughed again. “You want to contribute to that?” she said as she looked at Nikki.
    Nikki looked at herself and replied, “I’m hungry Lynn! Can’t we just go eat something please!”
    “Fine, fine. Let’s go. How about pizza?”
    “Pizza is good!”
    “Alright, come on,” Lynn said and grabbed Nikki’s purse and handed it to her.
    Nikki smiled big and walked with Lynn to get her stuff and then they headed out the door and got in the car. About ten minutes later, they ended up on a strip of shopping stores and small cafes. They walked down the strip and saw all the Valentine stuff in the window.
    Nikki sighed, “I wish I had a valentine,” she said.
    Lynn pouted her face and said, “if it makes you feel any better, I don’t have one either.”
    Nikki let out a deep breath and they continued to walk. They got into the pizza shop and each had their fair share of cheese and pepperoni slices. they spent about an hour in there eating and just talking. After they paid their bill they got up and headed for the door. The two of them were talking and turned out the door and bumped into someone on the way down the sidewalk.
    “Whoa,” the guy said.
    Nikki looked up and her heart jumped. “Lance! What, what are you doing here?”
    “I was here visiting some friends with Taylor.” Lance leaned in and hugged Nikki. “Girl how are you?! I haven’t talked to you in like two months. I tried to call you like 5 times and it said that your phone wasn’t in service.”
    “I know, I’m sorry. I shut off my cell and got a local one. I meant to call you but I kept getting side tracked.”
    “Well I’ll forgive you this once! It’s just good to see you!”
    “You too,” she said. “So how are the guys? Are any of them here?”
    “They are good. None of them are here except for me. They are all actually in Orlando right now.”
    “Cool, cool,” she said.
    Lance all of a sudden stepped back and his face got a look of awe on it. “Nikki? What’s going on?”
    Nikki knew exactly what he was talking about. “What do you mean?” she mumbled.
    Lance looked at her and said, “you know exactly what I mean Nichole! I thought you said that you...that... I can’t believe that you lied about that to me. Wasn’t it bad enough that you cheated on JC?”
    “Lance, no, I can explain!”
    Lance shook his head from side to side and said, “no Nikki I don’t think you can.”
    “But Lance,” Nikki said and a tear fell from her eye. “Lance I’m sorry.”
    “How am I supposed to believe you?! You lied to me Nikki.”
    “No, actually I didn’t. You didn’t straight ask me Lance. You beat around the bush about it.”
    “But YOU KNEW what I mean.”
    Nikki didn’t exactly know how to answer back to that remark. “Lance I was afraid.”
    “Of what!? Me?”
    “Of you’d say!”
    “Oh so you’d rather to me about it and then see me upset when I find out the truth?”
    “I didn’t expect you to be here today Lance.”
    “Ohhhh, so you were just planning on hiding this forever huh?”
    “Lance you’re putting words in my mouth.”
    “Well how about you tell me your own words.”
    “Lance, it’s a long story,” she started.
    Lance put his hands on his hips and said, “I’ve got time.”
    “Lance look... I lied about some stuff and I can’t change that. I was forced to make some choices and now I can’t go back on them. This is just too much for me. I didn’t expect to see any of you guys for awhile. I was hoping that by then I would know what I was doing with my life.”
    “Do you know who the,” he got broke off by Nikki.
    “Yes I do.”
    “So you lied about all that other stuff?”
    Nikki was getting frustrated and so she yelled, “YES LANCE I DID! Dammit am I gonna hear about this for forever? I screwed up alright. I screwed up by lying to you, but it doesn’t change things. I make a decision and I wanna think that I made the right one.”
    “What decision? To come out to Cali and hide yourself for a year or so? To lie to your friends? To cheat on a guy you loved?"
    That drew the line. Nikki couldn’t hear any more of it. She felt tears start streaming down her face as she said, “Lance, just leave me alone. I thought if anyone, I could end up telling you what really happened... but now I know I can't even do that.”
    “I guess not,” he said with his head held down. “I’m sorry you didn’t trust me enough to begin with Nikki. I’m not gonna tell the guys because I know that it would get back to JC and it would hurt him even more than you already hurt him. Goodbye Nikki,” Lance said and walked away.
    Nikki cried and Lynn wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close. “Everything is going to alright Nikki. You’ll see. Just give it time,” she said.

    Lance mumbled as he walked down the sidewalk and over to his car. “What is her deal!?” He put the key in the door and then turned back and saw Nikki still wrapped in Lynn’s arms. “She goes and hits it with some guy, lies about it all and then expects things to be fine,” he mumbled to himself. “Ugh, women,” he said and then slid into his car.
    He was driving down the road and when he got to a stop light he looked over and saw a woman pushing a carriage with a baby in it. “Man,” he said, “I can’t tell JC what’s up. He’ll flip a lid. He is just now starting to cool all off.” Lance chewed his lip and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
    The light turned green and Lance started to drive again. He was going under the speedlimit because he wasn’t paying much attention. He was too busy thinking about Nikki and her whole situation. They had been good friends for so long, and he really didn’t want to just give it up over this. That would just be something that he couldn’t do as a Christian man. He didn’t want to go back, nor call her though.
    “Maybe I’ll just wait a little while then I will call her and see what’s up,” he said. “She obviously gonna need more friends then just Lynn to be there for her.” With that said and done he noticed that his speedometer was under then limit and the car behind him was riding his butt. “I’m ‘a going, jeeze,” he said as he picked up speed and then took the exit for the highway.

    “Lynn I can’t keep lying to him,” Nikki said as she backed away from her best friend. “Lance is very important to me and I cannot go on lying to him.”
    “Oh, so does that go for lying to JC also?” she said back sarcastically.
    “Lynn, I’m serious. That is so different and you know that. Girl I need moral support here not a conscious,” she practically cried.
    “I’m sorry Nik, really I am. Call up Lance then and try to work things out. Maybe he deserves to know the whole story.”
    “No way, I can’t tell him everything. I just can’t. I just don’t want to keep lying, like by adding NEW lies on top of other ones. Ya know?”
    “I think so.”
    Nikki sighed and said, “this is so much more complicated than I thought it would be.”
    “I hear ya girl. Well, I’m here for you whenever you need me,” she said as she draped an arm around Nikki’s shoulders. “Let’s go home and call Lance,” she said and then they both started walking.

    “Aye, tis the luck of the Irish,” a man said as Nikki walked by and he gave her a green shamrock. “Bid ye young ones a many happy life with lots of treasures,” he added in his Irish accent.
    “Thank you kindly,” Nikki said and continued on her way. She hadn’t been on that strip of shops since the day she bumped into Lance, and now here it is March 17th and she still hadn’t talked to him. Her and Lynn got home that day they ran into Lance, and Nikki planned on calling and talking to him. Well she did call, but his phone just continuously rang. She figured that he didn’t want to talk to her, so she didn’t try again.
    Nikki walked into the little ice cream shop and got her a small cone of Crazyocity. She then sat down at a booth and just thought about stuff. She tried to figure out what she was going to do come Summer time. Things were going to be a lot different and she really did want to be able to go back to Orlando, but she didn’t want to take the chance of crossing paths with JC right away. They hadn’t said a word to one another since the day that JC thought Lance was talking to his girlfriend so he took the phone. It killed Nikki knowing that JC probably hated her, but he hated her for all the wrong reasons.

    Nikki looked out the window and just stared off into the distance. She had so much on her mind and she just didn’t know how to handle it all. She was tired of running from things, but she was too afraid to face the truth. All of a sudden her trance was broken by the sound of her phone ringing.
    “Hello?”
    “Nikki, it’s me.”
    Nikki sighed and said, “Lance I really don’t want to hear you putting me down and telling me how wrong I was and what a horrid person I am.”
    “Nikki I wasn’t going to do that. Look I am sorry for my behavior that day last month. But you must realize the position you put me in.”
    “I do Lance and I am sorry for that. I can’t change things ya know. I did what I did because I felt that it was the best thing to do.”
    “What? Telling me you slept with someone you didn’t know, and that you were fine ... then for me to run into you and find out that you did know him and that you aren’t technically ‘fine’. That was the best thing to do?”
    “Lance,” she started.
    “I’m sorry,” he broke in. “I’m sorry. I know, I just started it again. Look, I’m in LA and I would really like to just sit down and talk with you. Do you think we could do that?”
    “Where are the others?”
    “JC is in Canada with his roommate and Justin is in New York with his girl. Joey and Chris are back in Florida.”
    “I’d like to see you. Yes, Lance. Where?”
    “Can you meet me at La Grand Mesmo?”
    “Sure. I’ll be there in like 15 - 20 minutes.”
    “Okay. See you soon. Oh, I’m in room 427.”
    “Okay,” she said and then hung up. She got up and threw her trash away and said to herself, “well I can fess it up or lie again. Here goes nothing.”

    Nikki and Lance had been sitting at the table in his room for about an hour when Nikki finally said, “and that’s it. That’s the whole story.”
    “I... I don’t know what to say Nikki. Why didn‘t you tell me sooner?”
    “Because I knew that you would feel the need to tell someone else. I can’t have that right now. I don’t want that right now Lance. Please favor my wishes by not saying anything.”
    “You’re gonna have to say something eventually. You know that right?”
    “Yes, but not now. Things are so perfect for him. How could I ruin that?”
    “I don’t think you’d ruin it Nik.”
    “I would, and I can’t do that.”
    Lance sat there staring at Nikki. He didn’t know what to say really, or how to react, or what to do. “I won’t say anything.”
    “Thank you so much Lance,” she said and stood to give him a hug. “I know eventually it will come out, but not now.”
    “You know how hard this is going to be for me right?”
    “Do you know how hard it has already been on me?” she asked right back. “We can do this. Now at least we somewhat have each other.”
    “True I suppose. We’ll see. Do you plan on coming home afterwards?”
    “Not right away, no. I need time to get myself back together and figure out what to do to better ‘both of us’,” she said as she looked down.
    “Well, will you at least call me when,” he started to say.
    “I’ll let you know. Yes.”
    “Alright,” he said and then stood up. He looked at his watch and said, “well I gotta catch a flight here pretty soon. The guys and I have some stuff to do in Otown.”
    “Thank you for calling me Lance. I am really glad that I got that stuff off of my chest.”
    “Anytime Nikki. I’m sorry for being such an ass before. It’s just a lot to take in ya know?”
    “I know. Believe me, I know.” Nikki headed towards the door and said, “I’ll talk to you soon Lance.”
    Lance reached out and hugged her. “Take care of you. G’bye Nikki,” he said and then watched her walk out of the room and down the hallway to the elevator.
    Joey walked out of the side room when he heard the door shut and said, “how do you plan on keeping that one a secret?”
    Lance looked at Joey. He had almost forgotten that he was there. He knew that Nikki wouldn’t want to talk about all of what had happened if she knew Joey was around too, so Joey hid in the side room while she was there. “I dunno man, but I promised, and I want you to too.”
    Joey stared Lance dead in the eyes and said, “I promise.”



Part Six