Here we go with Part 25. Thanks again to everyone who has written. It really is great getting to know the people who read my story. Sorry about yet another long delay between chapters. I finally got around to hooking up this little mini-laptop (it runs Windows CE) I picked up a while back so I can write anywhere instead of having to sit at my desk. Hopefully this will get me back on the stick and posting more regularly.
One of the things that seems to be a tradition on here is for authors to mention some of their favorite stories... I have been an avid reader of quite a few: Forever (Back after a hiatus), Twist of Fate (I'm waiting for another installment, Jeff), Yellow, Just Together (Celebrity section but has N'Sync in it), Brian and Me (what a sad ending, but I guess DLS left room for a sequel -- hope, hope, hope), Jamie's Romance, My Surprise Romance, Lance in Shining Armour, Studio in the Country, Lucky Me, Not Meant to Be, Mile High Meeting (I'm still ahead of you Cam, but not by much), Model Romance, Beneath It All and the list goes on. My email address is mikeylikesit80@hotmail.com, if you feel inclined to write and let me know what you think or just want to chat.
Now on to the standard disclaimers. I doubt that anything I write will make any difference since if you found this little gathering place on the World Wide Web you're probably going to go ahead and read what's here no matter what anyone says. But here it goes anyway...
If you have a problem reading about guys who like other guys as something more than just friends, you need to go find some other place to poke around. If you are under the legal age to read erotic fiction where you live, you probably wouldn't get in trouble for reading this story, but you really don't belong here. And most importantly, many of the names mentioned in this story have been changed to protect the guilty (or is that supposed to be the innocent?). Under no circumstances will I disclose whether or not I actually know any of The Backstreet Boys or any other celebrity who may make an appearance. Nor do I believe in outing people, so I will not disclose any information about the true sexual orientation of anyone mentioned in this story.
Previously in the story of Nick and the Altos
When we got over to where the dinner had been arranged, I said, "Hey guys, do you think Nick has a really sm..."
"Mikey, you had better shut your mouth right now or you are going in the pool, clothes and all," Nick shouted as he grabbed me around my chest.
"What was it you wanted to know Mikey," AJ asked.
"Do you think..."
"Mikey, I'm warning you!"
"Come on, Mikey. Ask away. We'll protect you from Nick," Kevin said laughing.
"You guys have known Nick since he was what, 13 years old. Right?"
"Yeah," Brian said.
"Well, do you think his ...."
Just then we were interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing. Jason got up and went over to the table and picked up the handset and said, "Hello."
"Yes, this is Jason Alto."
"Ok, we'll be there as quickly as possible, goodbye."
"We need to get to the hospital right way," Jason said, "You guys are all welcome to stay here. I don't know what time we'll be back though."
Jennifer, Nick and I got up to leave. Kevin said, "Thanks, Jason. Nick, why don't you stay here with us. There are some things we need to talk about."
"Kev, I can't. I need to go with Mikey."
"Nick, I'll be ok. You can stay here with the guys," I said.
"No, I'm going. Whatever it is can wait."
"Ok, Nick," Kevin said, "We can talk when you get back or later at the hotel."
It was yet another speed run to the hospital. After parking we rushed to the Intensive Care Unit where Dr. Josephs was at our mother's bedside. When we entered the room he rose and led us back into the corridor. "Your mother hasn't opened her eyes, but we are starting to see some movement in her hands. I don't want you to get your hopes up too much, but I think it is a positive sign."
"Do you think she will wake up soon?" I asked.
"I don't know, Michael, but I'm surprised that it is happening so soon."
"So it looks like she will be all right?" Jason asked.
"We won't know for a while about that, Jason," Dr. Josephs replied. "We need to approach everything one day at a time."
"Can we go in and see her," Jennifer asked.
"We don't want to overwhelm her, so two at a time and just a couple of minutes," he replied.
Nick and I remained out in the hall while Jason and Jennifer went into the room with Dr. Josephs. We stood side by side against the wall. As hospital staff walked by, they would glance at us and smile. The younger people did a real double take as they thought they recognized Nick.
After a few minutes Jason and Jennifer came back out of the room and I started to go inside. When Nick didn't follow I stopped, grabbed his hand and pulled him after me asking, "Why didn't you come with me?"
"I thought you would want to be alone with her."
"No, Nick, I want you by my side... always."
We walked over to the bed and, as we had that afternoon, held her hand between ours. After a few seconds I began talking to her, "Mom, it's Mikey and Nick. Mom, we need you. You have to get better."
I reached up with my other hand and stroked her hair. As I continued to talk quietly to her I was sure I felt her fingers move a little. I looked over to Nick and he smiled and nodded slightly, so I guess I wasn't imagining it.
All too quickly the nurse told us that we needed to leave. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, as did Nick. We turned and started for the door but then I stopped because I thought I heard something. We turned around and saw her eyes were partially open. We went back over to the bed and a slight smile appeared on her face as she whispered, "How are my boys?"
Nick turned to me and asked, "Does she think I'm Jason?"
"Nick," she whispered, "I know it's you. You're one of my boys too."
Then, as suddenly as her eyes opened, they closed and she was asleep again. Nick pulled me close and gave me a big hug. Then we walked towards the door holding hands.
When we joined up with Jason and Jennifer, I told them how mom had woken up for a few seconds but was sleeping again. They wanted to go in and see her again, so Nick and I walked down to the waiting room and sat until they were ready to leave.
When we got back to Jason's house, the guys were still there. Nick told them about what happened when we were in the room. Brian got sort of emotional and came over and gave me a really big hug, telling me everything was going to be fine.
Jennifer reheated some food for the four of us, since we hadn't gotten a chance to eat much before the call came from the hospital. Everyone decided to join in so we sat around and had dinner all over again. Afterwards Nick and I went for a walk around the neighborhood while everyone else sat around the pool and relaxed.
Around 11:00 we decided to head back to the hotel. On the way upstairs, Kevin reminded Nick that they needed to talk. I started to head into our room but Nick stopped me, saying "Mikey, there's nothing Kevin's going to say that you can't hear too."
I noticed that Kevin got a pained expression on his face as he overheard what Nick said to me. Then he said, "Nick, I think we should talk alone."
"Why, Kevin?" Nick asked, "Mikey is my boyfriend and that means he is just as much family as the rest of us. I don't want to hide anything from him."
"It's ok, Nick," I said as I opened the bedroom door. "I think I'm going to go lay down in our room. If I fall asleep, wake me when you come in."
"No," Nick said angrily, "It's not ok. There is nothing that anyone in this group needs to discuss that you or Kristin or Amanda or Leighanne should be prevented from hearing. Does anyone disagree about this? If so, I want to know and I want to know why!"
The room was quiet for a few moments as Nick looked at each of his band mates one at a time. I paused to see what the reaction to Nick's challenge would be. Finally Kevin spoke, "Nick, it's not that Mikey can't hear what we have to talk about. It's just that it pertains to what happened at MTV and I don't know how much he knows about what happened."
"If it's about that, he pretty much knows what happened and it definitely concerns him."
"Ok, let's all sit down and talk this out before we head off to bed," Kevin said.
"I just hope we wear the two of them out before they go to bed so they are too tired for a night of loud sex that keeps the rest of us awake," AJ said.
Nick turned to face AJ and stared at him for a few seconds before raising his right hand a flipping him off.
"Nick, that's not necessary," Kevin said.
"What do you mean by that?" Nick asked, "He's the one that started it by making that comment. Why aren't you saying something to him. It's always me who gets bitched at no matter who starts it."
"That's not true," Kevin replied.
"Actually, Kevin, it usually is true," Howie interjected. "You do tend to blame him most of the time. I must be a pretty sound sleeper, they haven't woken me up doing it."
"Jeez, we couldn't have possibly woken anyone up doing it because we haven't done it," Nick said angrily.
"You're joking?" AJ asked.
"No, he's not," I said quietly, "we love each other but we're just not ready. The times we have had together haven't exactly been all that conducive to getting very intimate. So are you happy now you know the extent of our sex life?"
"I'm sorry, guys," AJ said, "I didn't realize."
"Let's just forget it," Nick said, "Can we get the damned meeting over so Mikey and I can go to bed?"
Everyone sat down in the living room of the suite. Kevin explained to us what had been going on. There had been several calls from Kurt Loder asking what was going on and saying that Carson was threatening to tell the story on TRL. He talked about the conversations he had been having with their management, who were extremely concerned about the story becoming public.
Kevin didn't know how much longer Kurt would be able to keep Carson from telling others about what Nick had said. He was asking for Nick to talk to either himself or Brian McFayden to explain what had happened.
As I sat on the couch holding Nick's hand, our fingers intertwined, I could feel him get tense as Kevin spoke. When Kevin finished, Brian spoke up and suggested they have management take action against Carson to keep him quiet. There was a pretty intense conversation between Kevin, Brian, AJ and Howie about what they could do. Nick and I just sat there and watched them discuss what Nick should do.
Finally, Nick couldn't take it any longer. He quietly spoke, saying "I want to come out."
Apparently no one besides me heard him, they were so involved in their discussion. Nick sat there for a few seconds and then he spoke again. However, this time he yelled, "Shut the fuck up!"
Needless to say the room became deathly silent. I could feel him trembling. I was sure he was on the verge of tears. All eyes were focused on him as he repeated his first statement, "I want to come out. I don't care what management thinks. I don't want to live a lie any longer."
Brian was the first to respond, "Nick, don't you think you should wait until you guys have been together longer?"
"No, just because we haven't had sex doesn't mean I don't love Mikey with all my heart. Brian, you're my best friend. You of all people must realize how much I love him."
"Nick, I didn't mean it that way. It's just that you guys hardly see each other. Shouldn't you wait until you can spend more time together."
"I was gay long before I met Mikey, I'm not gay because of him. How can I spend quality time with him when we are having to sneak around so people don't realize what is going on? You all know how hard long distance relationships are. Can you imagine what it's like for the two of us?"
"Nick, why don't you think about it and we can talk again in the morning," Kevin said.
"Ok, but don't expect be to change my mind," Nick said as he started to stand up.
We walked towards our bedroom door. I had just gone into the bedroom when Nick paused after Kevin, who had followed us towards the bedroom, had asked him to wait a minute. Nick stopped and turned around.
Kevin pulled Nick into a hug. When they separated, Nick asked, "What was that for?"
"I just want you to know that I'll support you whatever you decide. Nicky, I may tend to be a little overbearing at times, but I am so proud of you. You really are growing up even though it's hard for me to accept it."
Nick pulled Kevin into a long hug, saying "I've been grown up for a while now, you just never noticed. And if you hadn't been such a great big brother, who knows what I would have ended up like. Thanks for being there, Kev. See you in the morning."
"Good night, Nicky."
Nick turned and joined me in the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He walked over to where I was standing looking out the window and stood behind me, putting his arms around me, resting his chin on my head.
"Trying to make me feel like a short little shit?" I asked.
"Nope, I figure you've known that for a while without any help from me."
That got him a gentle elbow in the ribs. Then I turned around a reached up and kissed him. We continued to kiss as we gradually moved towards the bed. I backed him up to the point he could sit down and then I started unbuttoning his shirt. After removing it I undid his belt and unzipped his jeans. He stood up so that I could pull them off too. Then I pushed him backwards on to the bed and undressed myself as he watched.
Once I was down to my boxers, I got on the bed, crawled over to him and had him roll on to his stomach. Then I straddled him and started to massage his shoulders and back. He was really tense. As I worked on the tight muscles I occasionally would bend over and kiss him on the back of his neck. After about 20 minutes I was satisfied that his muscles had relaxed enough, so I got off him and lay down on the bed. He rolled on to his side facing me and I noticed that Little Nicky was pretty excited, poking out of the fly in his boxers.
"What got you so excited?" I asked.
"Well, you were sitting on my butt and sort of rubbing around while you were giving me a massage. What did you expect?"
"So do you want to go to sleep or do you want to see what happens next?"
"As much as I would like to keep going, what I really want to do is fall asleep in each other's arms. Is that ok with you?"
"That is totally ok with me, sweetie," I replied as I snuggled up against him. It didn't take long before the two of us were sound asleep.
When I awoke the next morning I was reminded of why I enjoyed sleeping with Nick so much. He was spooned up behind me and his right arm was wrapped around me. I could feel him pressed up against my butt. If I hadn't already been hard, feeling that would have made me so very quickly.
It turned out that Nick was already awake, because he somehow noticed that I was and kissed the back of my neck.
"Don't start anything you aren't going to finish, Mr. Carter," I said softly.
"My, aren't we formal this morning. So how's my sleeping beauty doing?"
"Laying here snuggled up next to you... I'd say I'm the happiest guy in the whole world. So how long have you been awake?"
"About an hour. I've been thinking about what to do."
"Thinking without coffee? Is that even possible?"
"Maybe not for an addict like you, but I can manage."
"So have you decided what you want to do? You know you don't need to come out to make me happy, don't you?"
"Yeah, I know. I need to come out to make me happy. Even if I weren't in love with you, I don't know how much longer I would be able to hide the real me. So what if I break a few girls' hearts."
"A few... maybe several million."
"It didn't seem to depress Angela."
"True, but you were falling in love with her brother. Plus I guess it would be a great example for a whole bunch of gay kids to have someone of your stature were to come out."
"I guess, but all that doesn't matter. What matters is that I will finally be true to myself and, even more important, I don't have to hide the way I feel about you."
"Yeah," I sighed, "So much for a life of anonymity."
"So you don't want me to?"
"No, I'm not saying that, I just am going to have to get used to being back in the spotlight. Don't worry, you're worth whatever we have to go through."
"So are you about ready to get up and go to breakfast?"
"I'd much rather stay just where I am, but if you are going to insist on feeding your face I guess I'll have to go along."
"You ready for a shower, sexy boy?" he whispered in my ear.
"As much fun as that sounds, I think we ought to take turns in case the phone rings."
"Ok, I'll go first then," Nick said as he kissed me once again and then crawled out of bed.
"Don't you dare do anything more than shower, Mr. Carter. I plan on taking care of the other thing that might just be on your mind later on today."
He looked over his shoulder and there was a big grin on his face. At least there was for a few seconds before he walked into the wall next to the bathroom door. I started laughing so hard I almost fell out of bed, saying "Been walking long Nick or just reading about it?"
Fortunately he didn't appear to have been hurt since he had been moving pretty slowly. "Hey, it's not funny, I could have hurt myself," he said as he tried for a second time to walk into the bathroom. This time he made it without any problem.
I lay in bed listening to him shave, brush and then sing in the shower. As I lay there I was startled by Nick's phone ringing. After pulling it out of his jeans pocket, I answered it, "Hello, Nick's phone."
"Who's this?" a woman asked.
"Mikey," I replied.
"Where's Nick?" she asked.
"In the shower," I replied.
"What are you doing in his... Oh shit!" she exclaimed, "The Enquirer was right, he is a fucking faggot."
"Who is this?"
"His mother. You tell your fag boyfriend that the next time anybody asks, I'll tell them the real reason Mandy dumped him."
"Wait... " I started to say but there was no one on the other end any longer. I lay there for a few seconds trying to figure out what to do.
"I guess it was a good idea you waited," Nick said as he walked out of the bathroom. "I heard the phone ring just before I turned off the shower."
I didn't respond. I just sat there in bed looking at the phone sitting in my lap.
"Mikey, what's wrong. Is it your mom?"
"No," I replied sadly.
"Mikey, are you ok? Who was it?" he asked as he sat down next to me.
"It was your mother. She wasn't exactly happy that I answered your phone while you were in the shower."
"Oh shit, what did she say?"
"She called you a fucking faggot."
"I figured that would be the way she would react. That's one of the reasons I haven't been anxious to tell her about us."
"Nicky, who's Mandy?"
"Mandy? What did she say about her?"
"That from now on she was going to tell the truth about the breakup. You've never mentioned her before."
"Mandy was sort of my girlfriend for a while. Nothing ever happened between us, Mikey. I swear! She was just someone I hung out with and dated. She was just a friend who finally figured out why I wasn't interested in going beyond kissing. I'm sorry I didn't mention her before, Mikey. It just wasn't anything serious as far as I'm concerned."
"It's ok, Nicky. It wasn't that I was worried about her. I was just really upset by the way your mother was on the phone."
"I'm sorry you were the one who had to deal with her. Now you know why I haven't been in any great rush to take you home to meet the parents. Doesn't look like we have to worry about making that trip any time soon."
"Guess not. What about your brother and sisters?"
"I'll just have to try to talk with them when she's not around."
"I'm sorry, Nicky."
"Thanks, but it's not your fault."
Nick lay down on the bed and we cuddled for a few minutes before I got up and headed for the bathroom. Once I successfully negotiated the doorway I turned around and said, "That's the right way to walk into the bathroom, in case you need a demonstration." I shut the door just in time to keep from being hit in the face with a pillow. I opened the door, poked my head out and said, "Better luck next time..."
After I was through in the bathroom, we got dressed and went out into the living room. Kevin was sitting on the couch reading the Santa Barbara NewsPress. There was a pot of coffee on the buffet and Nick fixed both of us a cup. Then we went over and sat down on the other couch.
Nick told Kevin about his mother's phone call. It didn't seem to come as much of a shock to him. After they talked about what Nick's mother had said, Nick told Kevin that he had decided to tell MTV the truth. He said that he felt he would be most comfortable talking to Brian McFayden. Carson Daly wasn't even a possibility. Kevin told us that their management group had contacted MTV about Carson and, while MTV wouldn't guarantee anything, they were hopeful that he would be keeping his mouth shut.
After a while we were joined by the rest of the guys and we decided to go out for breakfast. While we were on our way to the restaurant, I called Jason to see if there was any news about our mother or from the police. He said that mom was still sleeping after a quiet night and that the police didn't have any news to report.
We had a great breakfast. The mood wasn't as somber and it had been for the past couple of days since everyone was hopeful that my mother was going to recover. Nick told Brian, Howie and AJ about his decision and they were all supportive. When Nick told them about the phone call from his mother it almost took restraints to keep AJ from tracking her down and giving her an attitude adjustment.
After we left the restaurant, I mentioned that I was going to go out to the house and check on the horses. Kevin said that he would like to go along if he wouldn't be in the way. Nick wanted to go shopping with Brian, Howie and AJ, so we decided to split up.
After dropping them off on State Street, Kevin and I drove back to Montecito. At first there was an awkward silence. It was the first time that I had even been alone with him. Finally Kevin broke the silence saying, "He really loves you, you know. I sure hope you realize how much."
"Yeah, Kevin, I do. I hope you and the rest of the guys know how much I love him."
"He's pretty important to us. I guess we tend to be a bit overprotective. Even more now than before since he told us he is gay. It isn't easy watching your little brother spread his wings."
"You and Nick tend to butt heads a lot, but I know that he really looks up to you, Kevin. It's a bit hard for him to admit it, but he really needs your acceptance. I know what it's like to have an older brother who doesn't accept you as you are."
"Jason has a problem with you being gay?"
"Not now for the most part anyways, but he did when I first came out. I guess I'm lucky he was away at school or it would have even been worse."
"Well, Nick doesn't have any worries in that department. Our management isn't going to be happy, but they will have to deal with it. They will probably threaten him, but we are all behind him. How are you going to deal with the notoriety?"
"Well, I'll just put my head down and live through it. It's not like I don't have some experience putting up with negative press. My family was subject to a lot of scrutiny as far back as I can remember. I just got used to living with the incorrect assumptions people made about us."
"I'm sure it didn't ever get easy, though."
"No, but you just learn to live with it."
We pulled up to the entrance to the estate and were stopped by a policeman. After identifying myself, we were allowed through the gate. Kevin drove up the driveway, slowing as we got to the house and we looked at all the people who were still going over the place. We kept going and pulled up to the barn.
None of the horses were around, so I grabbed a bucket and scooped some grain into it and we started walking across the pasture. As usual the horses were just about as far away from the barn as they could get. After we got past the trees we could see them in the distance. I whistled as loud as I could, which isn't very, and was totally ignored, even by Smoke. Kevin put his right hand up to his mouth and whistled so loudly he scared the shit out of me. The horses lifted their heads and Smoke quickly headed our direction.
We headed back towards the barn and were quickly overtaken by the horses. Smoke took advantage of softy me and kept sticking his muzzle in the bucket and grabbing mouthfuls of grain as we walked. I noticed that Kevin really seemed to be enjoying himself around the horses and asked him if he would like to go for a ride. Let's leave it at I didn't need to ask twice.
I spread the remaining grain in the feed trough and climbed over the fence and got a couple of halters from the tack room. I tossed one to Kevin and told him to put it on the buckskin gelding, a horse named Shadow Dancer. He led him over to the gate, which I opened. After they had gone through I called out to Smoke and he trotted over and followed them into the barn. After putting Shadow Dancer in the crossties, I grabbed some brushes and handed two to Kevin, who went to work cleaning up his ride. I did the same to Smoke.
We saddled up the two horses, mounted and headed up the road, talking about a variety of things. When we approached the ring, Kevin asked, "So have you ridden a lot? You look pretty comfortable."
"Yeah, you could say that. You know how I told you about how I just had to get used to having things said about me and my family? Well, the horses were my escape. No matter how screwed up everything seemed to be, I could just come up here and ride."
"Smoke sure is a good looking horse. Is he trained?"
"He's more than trained, Kevin. Smoke was one of the top working cow horses in country when he was five."
"You're kidding. Wow, I love watching horses perform."
"Why don't you ride over there next to the ring and I'll see if he remembers anything. We haven't done this in a year or two, so we're both a bit rusty."
I urged Smoke into a jog and headed him back to the entrance to the ring. Once inside we went around a couple of times at a jog and then I moved him towards the center and nudged him into a lope. We did three figure eights and he changed leads without skipping a beat. When we were at the Southern most point of the circle, I reined him in and guided him towards the other end of the ring. I gave him some rein and he picked up speed, gradually increasing from a lope to a run. When I figured we were at the spot to stop, I sat back, pulled on the reins and he stuck it and slid to a stop. It was a little rough but not bad.
As soon as we stopped I reined him into a clock-wise spin. We did a 360 and I immediately reined him back the other direction 180 degrees. As soon as we stopped I urged him forward and we did another sliding stop at the other end. This one was much smoother and we slid nearly 20 feet. Then we did a 1 1/2 counter-clockwise spin and I relaxed the reins and patted him on the neck as I said, "Way to go, old man." Smoke was breathing pretty hard, so I stopped the workout and walked him over to where Kevin was watching.
"Wow, you guys are pretty good."
"Thanks, he's pretty out of shape though. He's been enjoying his retirement a little too much. I don't come up and ride as much as I should."
"You would never know you two didn't do that all the time."
"If you think that was good, you should have seen us when we were competing."
"Did you show a lot?"
"Not a lot, my parents weren't exactly supportive. But we were never out of the money."
"That's awesome. Does Nick know?"
"Well, he's seen the shrine but I don't think he really knows what it's all about."
"So do you have any videos?"
"Yeah, a few."
"We should watch them with Nick some time."
"I don't know. I'd feel like I was showing off."
"That's crap, Mikey. I'd like to see them and I bet Nick would too. So do you want to ride up into the hills?"
"Sure."
I rode out of the ring and then we rode about three miles up into the hills before turning around and heading back to the barn. After unsaddling and brushing the two horses, we turned them led them back to the pasture and turned them loose. I put a little more grain in the feed trough, which they devoured pretty quickly before trotting back out into the pasture to find the rest of the horses.
Kevin and I walked back to the car and drove back to the hotel. The others weren't back yet when we walked into the suite. We got cold drinks out of the refrigerator and stretched out on the couches and turned on the TV. Kevin selected a movie and we started watching it. I made it through the first ten or fifteen minutes before I fell asleep.
I don't know how long I slept, but I definitely remember being awakened by this really cute blond guy who started kissing me. Now there is another reason to take a nap. Nick told me I needed to get cleaned up because Jennifer was going to be stopping by to pick us up in a few minutes to take us to lunch and then off to the hospital.
I went into our bedroom and took a quick shower and changed into some clean shorts and a polo shirt. We went to a Mexican cafe on upper State Street and had a great lunch out on their patio. After lunch we drove up Micheltorena Street to the hospital. We went to ICU and after waiting only a few minutes, they let all three of us go in and sit with her. She was still sleeping. The nurse who was monitoring her condition said that she had been resting peacefully. The three of us pulled chairs up as close to the bed as possible. Jen and I took turns sitting on the edge of the bed, holding mom's hand and talking to her.
After we had been there about a half hour, Jason joined us. As he took his turn Nick and I got up to go get the four of us something to drink. We walked down the hallway and then took the elevator down to the ground floor where the cafeteria was located. I picked out the drinks while Nick went and grabbed a table, since we had decided to spend a few minutes by ourselves before heading back up to my mother's room.
I joined Nick a few minutes later and we started chatting while we relaxed. We had only been there about five minutes when we heard a quiet voice say, "Excuse me, but are you Nick Carter?" We were so focused on each other that we hadn't noticed the teenage boy standing a couple of feet away from our table.
"Yeah, what's your name?" Nick asked.
"Uh, Jeremy."
"Hi Jeremy, what's up?"
"I don't mean to be a pain or anything, but I was wondering if I could get your autograph for my sister. She's a really big fan."
"Sure," Nick said, "What's her name?"
"Alison."
"Um, Jeremy, I don't have a pen or paper with me. Can you get some?"
"Yeah, I'll be right back if you're going to be here for a few minutes."
"No prob, but don't take too long," Nick said. Jeremy turned and walked quickly out of the cafeteria.
"So do you think the autograph is really for his sister or does he have something in common with us?" I asked Nick.
"Who knows."
Within a couple of minutes Jeremy was back with a pen and a get well card.
"Where's your sister?" Nick asked.
"She's up on the fifth floor," Jeremy replied.
"That's the cancer floor," I said sadly.
"Yeah, how'd you know that?" he asked.
"My little sister spent a lot of time there."
"Jeremy, do you think it would be okay if we delivered the card in person?" Nick asked.
"You're joking..." he replied.
"No, totally serious. We have a few minutes before we need to be back upstairs. Let's go," Nick said as he stood up.
We followed Jeremy, who was in total shock I'm sure, up to the fifth floor. After we got off the elevator, I saw a couple of nurses that I recognized and waved to them. Jeremy led us to the room where is sister was staying. He asked us to wait outside while he went inside.
Jeremy walked into the room and whispered something to a woman who I assumed was his mother. She looked in our direction with a big smile on her face. Then Jeremy around to the other side of the bed and started talking to his sister, "Aly, I got you this card when I was down in the cafeteria," handing her the get well card.
"Thanks, Jer."
"Well, open it. Jeez!"
His sister opened the card and I could see this strange look on her face as she said, "Very funny, Jeremy."
"What to you mean? That's Nick Carter's signature."
"Yeah, right. I may be sick, but I'm not sick enough to fall for another one of your dumb practical jokes."
Nick walked around me and into the room saying, "You mean you don't recognize my signature? Jeremy said you were a big fan."
Alison turned and looked towards the door to see who was behind the voice she had just heard. "Oh my God! Oh God, Jeremy, look! Nick Carter just walked in my room! Oh my God!"
Nick walked over to her bed, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "Hi, Alison, it's nice to meet you."
"Jeremy, Nick Carter just kissed me. Oh my God, I must be dreaming."
"Aly, it's really him. I ran into him down in the cafeteria."
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"I'm here to see a friend of mine's mother. She's in this hospital too."
I stood out in the hall watching Nick talk to the two of him. Seeing the way he befriended them put a smile on my face, something that hadn't happened much recently.
After about ten minutes, Nick said, "Well, it's been great meeting you guys. I need to get back to my friend's mother. Hope you feel better really soon, Alison."
"Thanks for coming to visit me," Alison said."
"Hope you friend's mother feels better soon," Jeremy said.
"Thanks," Nick said as he got up and left the room.
"That was really nice of you to do that, Nick," I said.
"Thanks."
We got back on the elevator and since we were alone, I took advantage of the opportunity to pull him into a kiss. We broke as the elevator stopped and the doors started to open. We walked down the hallway and as we approach my mother's room I saw that Jason and Jennifer were standing in the hallway. Jason had his arms around her. When we got to where they were standing I noticed that Jennifer was crying.
Well, that's it for Part 25 of Nick and the Altos. Any comments, suggestions or whatever, email me at mikeylikesit80@hotmail.com.
Thanks for reading... Mikey