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Despite any and all cynicism expressed by the blonde Backstreet Boy, the awards
show was actually quite entertaining. The dresses were gorgeous and the music was cool, and I quite enjoyed watching Taylor
freak out every time she saw a celebrity she recognized. I'd be lying, though, if I said that the entertainment value
of the show had nothing to do with Nick the Cowboys fan. He had an amusing story about every celebrity that crossed
the stage, and for every scripted joke, he had a sarcastic response. Halfway through the ceremony, it became our own
little game to see who could come up with the best sarcastic retort for whatever the announcers were saying at any given time.
When I confessed to him that I didn't know much about pop culture, it became his personal mission to quiz me on every celebrity's
identity. For the ones I didn't recognize, he'd relay an anecdote that would make them memorable. For the ones I did
recognize, Nick was quick to defame them with a story of drunken debauchery at the last party.
He had immense respect
for most of his fellow musicians, though, and he was quick to explain that whenever someone took the stage for a performance.
In fact, our conversation didn't ebb until the after-party, when Taylor and Alex abandoned us for the dance floor and we found
ourselves alone, sipping drinks at a small table and surrounded by relatively tipsy members of the music industry. Nick garnered
quite a bit of attention from his peers, and a number of them came up to the table to exchange jabs or jokes with him.
Surprisingly, he introduced me to every single one. It was beyond charming, and despite my best attempts at apathy,
I was mesmerized by the blonde beauty that was my date for the evening.
Two Amaretto sours had made me bold, and
I finally set the second glass down with a sigh. "Okay, Nick the Cowboys fan, be honest--why on earth would a cute,
funny guy like you need help getting a date to one of these things?"
His perfect eyebrows rose in mock offense.
"What, you think I don't have dating woes like everyone else?"
"Not when it comes to locating a willing victim, no,"
I teased. "You've got something to say about everyone in here, and they all seem to like you. According to AJ,
you guys have female fans coming out of the woodwork. Isn't there, like, a mile-long line of pre-pubescent girls waiting
to help you procreate?"
He laughed modestly. "Probably, man. I don't know. I definitely wouldn't
tap that line for--what'd you call them, willing victims?" He paused to shake his head in amusement. "It's really creepy
to go out with a stranger who has memorized everything from your birthday and birthplace to your favorite color."
I
leaned back against the velvet seat cushion and smiled demurely. "Well, I definitely know none of that."
"Really?"
he teased, allowing his beautiful smile to bloom. "Not even the favorite color?"
"Nope," I admitted. "Taylor
forgot to give me the run-down, I guess. What is it?"
The corners of his mouth curled in a delightfully charming
smirk, and I bit my lip to keep myself from thinking forbidden thoughts about how good that mouth would taste on mine.
"Guess,"
he challenged.
I was way too thrilled with the excuse to stare closely at him. At long last, my gaze settled
on his azure eyes. "Blue?"
"Green, according to the teenybopper rags," he corrected with a chuckle. "It's
actually black, though."
I smiled with him. "I'll file that away for future reference."
"Great.
Another one." Nick rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "In the interest of maintaining equal ground, what's your favorite
color?"
It was my turn to smirk. "Guess."
"Touché," he remarked, smirking in return. His right eyebrow
rose ever so slightly higher than his left, and I had to fight the urge to trace its outline with one of my acrylic-tipped
fingers. "Let's see...gold, maybe?"
"Lavender," I amended with an embarrassed smile.
"Lavender?!" he cried
in mock surprise. "Such a girly color! I'm shocked, Bills girl. What with your feminist tendencies, I would've
totally pegged you as more of a rebel."
"It's a pretty color," I replied defensively. "It's...soft."
"Soft?"
Nick arched a single eyebrow again, and I groaned inaudibly.
"I don't need your sass, pretty boy. Give me some
other teenybopper tidbit."
"Okay," Nick agreed with a grin, "I like long walks on the beach, and I'm afraid of the
dark."
I leaned forward again, surprised by the admission of weakness. "Really?"
He laughed. "No!
Well, I do like long walks on the beach, but I generally prefer to take them alone. As for the dark..." He shrugged
modestly. "I think I grew out of the night-light when I was ten."
"You were a Backstreet Boy at ten?"
He
burst out laughing. Normally, I would've taken offense to such a great deal of ridicule, but I really, really liked
the sound of his laugh. A little too much, maybe.
"Man, you really weren't kidding when you said you weren't
a fan."
"Hey now," I began defensively, "I'm kind of a fan. I know all the words to 'I Want It That Way'."
Nick
looked entirely unimpressed. "Yeah, you and everyone else in the free world."
"Ego much?"
"It was the
number one single in the country for, like, eight weeks in a row!"
I rolled my eyes in acquiescence. "Okay, so
I suffer from a mild case of Backstreet ignorance. Enlighten me, blonde one. Give me the run-down."
He
took a deep breath and sat up straighter. "My name is Nickolas Carter. I was born in Jamestown, New York on January
28, 1980. I joined the Backstreet Boys when I was twelve--back when Nirvana was still cool and green really was my favorite
color. My favorite song of all time is probably 'Separate Ways' by Journey, and my favorite football team is--take notes
here, Bills girl--not the Dallas Cowboys, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers."
In spite of myself, I gave him a genuine smile.
"You make it sound like that's the most important part of your little speech."
"It is," he insisted. "In some
cultures, men are defined by their football loyalties!" When I gave him a doubtful look, he merely shook his head.
"No debating that one. It's your turn."
"My turn?"
"Yup. I gave you my run-down," he explained pointedly.
"Now you have to give me yours."
"I don't have hoards of loyal fans that know my entire life story, though. Hell,
Taylor and AJ are probably the only people that know and remember my birthday."
Nick gave me a curious look.
"Really?"
"Really." Not that he needed to know that. That made me sound pathetic, and pathetic I was not.
Lonely sometimes, maybe, but definitely not pathetic.
"All the more reason for you to give me the rundown, then," he
replied smoothly. "Now I'll know your birthday too."
I shrugged. "Fine. Name: Diana Casseres.
Born in Albany, New York on October 10, 1982."
Nick's eyes widened. "1982? Whoa!"
"What?"
He
shook his head in surprise. "You're a lot younger than I thought you'd be."
I leveled him with a doubtful look.
"I'm only two years younger than you, Bucs boy."
He grinned at the nickname amendment. "True, but...somehow,
you struck me as being a lot older."
"Whatever. You're interrupting my run-down."
He chuckled demurely
and made a sweeping motion with his hand. "By all means, continue."
"I moved to Buffalo when I was three, back
when Billy Idol was still cool and pink--yes, pink--was my favorite color. You already know that I'm a Bills fan."
He
dipped his chin expectantly. "Favorite song?"
I bit my lip in apprehension. Normally, I would've lied and
recited some title off of Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville just to go along with the whole feminist image he seemed
to have constructed, but I was a little too tipsy and a little too smitten not to be honest. "The 'It's A Small World'
song."
His eyes widened to at least twice their size. "That annoying thing that they play on that boat ride in
Disney World? Seriously?"
I nodded, ducking my chin ever so slightly--God forbid--in embarrassment.
"Why?
That song is, like, a crime against nature!"
I couldn't help it. I glared. He may be cute, but no one insults
the Small World song in my presence. "It is SO not a crime against nature. It's the complete opposite of a crime
against nature. It's a sweet little song that reminds all of us that, regardless of cultural differences and unnecessary
prejudices and oceans of separation, we're all somewhat similar at the end of the day. It's about happy endings and
a world of tolerance and all the good things that Disney stands for." That said, I took a deep breath and leaned back
in my chair, slightly embarrassed by the outburst. "It reminds us that we're not really as alone as we think we are,"
I finished quietly. My gaze drifted to the two empty glasses in front of me, and I mentally reprimanded myself.
No more glasses for me. If I was yelling at the Backstreet Boy about the Small World song, I'd definitely had enough.
When
I realized that he still hadn't said anything, I went from staring at the glasses to staring at the Backstreet Boy.
Which, of course, is completely and totally different from what I'd been doing for the rest of the evening.
Not.
"I
have this uncanny knack for biting your head off at the wrong time, don't I?"
He lifted his gaze from his own empty
bottles, and I saw for the first time that he was smiling. Not the bright, charming smile he'd been throwing my way
all evening, but a smaller, more genuine smile that made him way too endearing for me.
"Valiantly defending your song
choice hardly counts as biting my head off," he volleyed with a chuckle. "I was just thinking that you might have a
point."
My eyebrows rose in surprise.
"Don't let that get to your head, though, Bills girl. I still think
that song is annoying as all hell."
Instead of arguing the point, I returned his soft smile. "I promise not to
take personal offense at that comment."
"Wow," he teased. "That's, like, a big step for you, isn't it?"
"What's
that supposed to mean?" I demanded with a smile.
He shrugged demurely. "Aren't you usually indignant about everything?"
I
winced at the memory of our first conversation. "Not...everything."
He gave me a doubtful grin. "Right."
"No,
seriously," I assured him. "I mean, I have things that set me off just like anybody else, but...Taylor would tell you
that I'm deceptively prickly."
Nick leaned back in his chair with a laugh. "Deceptively prickly, huh? Is
she right?"
I shrugged. "Maybe?" Yes. Taylor's always right when it comes to me. Unfortunately.
"I think that everyone has a somewhat dislikeable image that they sell to people in hopes of weeding out the assholes."
Nick
frowned. "Weeding out the assholes?"
"Sure. It's a method of self-protection, I guess--you don't always
let people see the real you. Instead, you find some aspect of your personality and play it up ever so slightly to give
you character. The shallow people of the world just accept the image and move on, but the people who really matter will stick
around, dig a little deeper and see if there's something more complex floating beneath the surface."
Nick cocked his
head to the side thoughtfully. "That's an interesting theory."
"It's true for a lot of people, though," I pointed
out. "Take Alex, for instance. He's deceptively delinquent. He plays at being the bad boy, but he's really
a very sensitive guy with a good heart."
Nick's eyebrows rose in apparent
appreciation, and a small smile crossed his features. "Yeah, that's definitely Alex," he agreed with a laugh.
"How about Taylor?"
"Taylor's deceptively apathetic," I relayed with a conspiratorial smile. "I mean, she is
a very laid-back person by nature, but she feels a lot more deeply than she ever lets on. She loves Alex to death."
"Yeah,
I can see that," Nick conceded quietly, his gaze drifting over to the edge of the dance floor. "He loves her just as
much."
"Yeah, he does," I agreed. The wistful expression on Nick's face piqued my interest, though, and I decided--completely
against my character--to pry. "How about you?"
He glanced up in surprise. "Me?"
"Yeah, you.
What's your deceptive quality?"
He laughed bitterly for the first time all evening. "I don't know..."
"That's
a lie."
Oops. Welcome to the head of Diana Casseres: the breeding grounds of brutal honesty. Here,
we take other people's shit and shove it right back at them, but only when we care enough to call them on it.
I was
really starting to hate that I already cared enough to call Nick on it.
His eyes narrowed in my direction, and I expected
him to reprimand me. Instead, though, a small smirk surfaced. "That is a lie," he agreed, his tone belying his
appreciation for the insight. "I'm deceptively stupid," he admitted, "although I'm beginning to question the effectiveness
of that particular method."
"Sounds like a necessary reassessment," I remarked. "Why deceptively stupid?"
He
shrugged and began to study the table, tracing small circles on it with the pads of his finger. "In a lot of ways, it's
easier to deal with people when they think you're less than intelligent. They don't expect much from you, and so you
don't have to give them much. Stupidity is harmless in a lot of ways, though, so you don't make too many enemies--even
though you're keeping most of the people around you at arm's length."
Indignance makes a lot of enemies. Trust
me.
"That makes a lot of sense."
Another bitter laugh sprang forth, and all of the complex parts of me began
to wonder what Bucs boy was hiding that hurt him so much. "Yeah, well...it makes sense until the people you love start
buying the act."
"The people you love so don't buy that act," I argued. "Hell, one of the first things Alex said
about you was that you played at being stupid, but that you were really, really insightful underneath the surface."
Nick
laughed out loud. "You know, the first thing he told me about you was that you'd see right through the stupid act."
He cast a sideways glance at me, and his eyes sparkled in spite of the lingering sadness in them. "He was right, too."
I
smiled gracefully and--gasp--blushed. "Did he warn you about the prickly thing?"
"He didn't have to," Nick chuckled.
"I'm insightful, remember? I figured that one out on my own."
"You definitely shocked me when you called me on
it that first night," I agreed.
Another bitter laugh.
I'd had enough of the Bitter Backstreet routine.
I decided to take the plunge and press him--and quit wondering what on earth had moved Taylor to depose the drunken AJ so
very long ago. Fucking sentimentality.
"You know, that's a really ugly laugh for a Backstreet Boy."
Nick
rolled his eyes for the first time that evening. "Didn't you hear? Backstreet Boys get their hearts broken too."
As soon as the admission escaped, he winced and returned his gaze to the empty bottles of Smirnoff. "Shit. I have
not been drinking enough to be saying things like that." He glanced suspiciously at me. "What is it about you,
Bills girl? First, you elude the stupid act, and now you've got me talking about unrequited love..."
"Maybe you
should keep talking."
I had no idea what backward force of nature had turned me into Taylor for the evening, but I'd
take it if it got that God-awful frown off Nick's face. He looked like Atlas a couple hundred years after being handed
the world for safekeeping.
"Maybe I should thank you for an entertaining evening and head back to the hotel," he replied
wearily.
"Nah, that's a bad plan. I might get indignant again."
He smiled. It was a teeny, tiny
smile, but I'd take it.
"You know, I'm kinda surprised AJ didn't warn you."
"About what? Your penchant
for bitter laughter in the face of soul-searching conversation?"
As if on cue, Nick emitted another ugly laugh.
"I'm entitled, trust me. I just suffered a fairly nasty break-up."
"With the endearing idiot that bought the
stupid act?"
He looked up in surprise. "Yes, actually."
I tried to ignore the teeny, tiny--read: exceedingly
large--part of me that had so hoped Nick the Cowboys fan would be interested in a more-than-friendship and relegated myself
to the role of counselor.
"Tell me about her."
Nick rolled his eyes again. "There's not a whole hell of
a lot to say."
"Meaning that there's too much to say."
He smiled, caught again in a white lie. "That too.
We had a really good run together for a short time, and then she started sleeping around with a co-star of hers because she
didn't think I'd notice."
"But you did."
"Yeah. I knew what was going on. I just loved her enough
that I thought I could handle it. When the movie shooting ended, I coaxed her into admitting to everything, and we agreed
to try and work it out." He sucked in a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. "I tried, too. She
seemed really remorseful, and for about a month, we were good. Then she found another guy-on-the-side, and I told her
I'd had enough."
He was quiet for a moment, and I reached across the table to take his hand. "You made the right
decision."
"I know," he told me seriously. "Believe me, I know. It just...do you know what she said to
me when I asked her why she'd done it?"
I was almost afraid to ask. Working at the bar, I knew quite a
few manipulative women, and I knew all of the horrible things of which they were capable.
"She told me she didn't
think I'd figure it out." He laughed again, helplessly this time. "It fucking killed me, man. I'd put so much
into this girl because I really and truly loved her, and the entire time, she'd thought of me as nothing but a dumb, blonde
Backstreet Boy. I was just arm candy to her. She said she liked the way we looked together."
I narrowed
my eyes angrily. How could anyone be so cold to this guy? I'd spent only a few hours with him, and I was already
smitten. Me! The cold-hearted, head-giving, academically-obsessed bitch of a bartender! I was convinced
that he would've turned a weaker girl into butter by now.
Hell, I was having a hard time convincing myself that I
wasn't that weaker girl.
"What a bitch."
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Thankfully,
Nick looked more amused than insulted.
"In short? Yeah, she is. We had a lot of fun together, though,
and she made the world a lot less lonely." He sighed heavily and shook his head. When he glanced up, the megawatt
smile was back in place. "I owe you a thank-you, though. In talking to you these past few days, I'd kind of forgotten
about her. Of course, when I saw you downstairs in all of your copper-gold glory, I forgot about her completely.
I..." He blushed ever so slightly and let go of my hand. "I've had a really, really good time tonight. Better
than I thought I would, definitely. I'd forgotten about her completely until I saw her across the room during your Small
World speech."
Suddenly, the silence was explained, and I was kicking myself for thinking it was all about me.
Who the hell was I kidding? Of course he'd found someone to be smitten with. I was just a college kid, and he
was this amazingly successful, beautiful man with a good heart and eyes that were way too blue.
"I'm sorry."
I meant it, too. I wasn't sure I'd ever meant an apology to that degree before.
"Me too."
"Who is
she? Would I recognize her?"
He cast me an amusedly embarrassed sideways glance. "Yeah, you'd recognize
her all right." He cleared his throat and cut his gaze to the table. "It's, um...Paris Hilton."
I felt
like a fucking cartoon character. My eyes had widened to twice their size. My blood had frozen. My jaw was
wide open, and I was pretty sure that my chin was making a dent in the table.
Shit. Shit.
"You know,
not all of us girls subscribe to the Paris Hilton standard."
Had I been flexible enough, I could've kicked my
own ass.
I knew it wasn't all about me anymore, but I buried my face in my hands anyway. I was beyond embarrassed.
I was fucking mortified.
"Oh my God..."
I think he glanced over. I'm not sure, though. At that
point, my face was still squished against my fingers.
"I know. She's every smart woman's nemesis, blah blah
blah..."
I shook my head in vain. "No. God, no. That comment, the first night...I'm shocked you
didn't hang up on me."
For the first time in ten minutes, his laugh wasn't bitter. "Are you kidding?
It was great! The Paris Hilton standard..." He shook his head, chuckling still. "Everyone else has been
tiptoeing around me like I'm going to break if someone so much as mentions her name. Your comment...it was refreshing.
Painful, yes, but refreshing." He chuckled. "You're right, too. She does need a man. She just didn't need
me."
"Maybe that's because her stupid act isn't really an act."
I took a mental replay. I winced.
As soon as I get out of here, I'm buying myself a muzzle. God.
Insensitive much, Diana?
To
my relief, he laughed. "Thanks, I think."
"Compliment," I assured him, head still buried. "Trust me."
"I'll take your word for it," he agreed. "She can be stupid, sometimes. She's fun, though, and for whatever reason,
I loved her. We just...weren't looking for the same things, I guess."
I finally pulled my hands away from my
face, and the sad smile on his lips about broke my heart.
God, I wanted to be the one he was looking for.
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