"So, cold turkey, huh?"
"Yeah, it sucked at first," Nick comments.
"I bet," Joey sympathizes.
I feel Nick stand behind me and wraps his arm around his body, my hands linking with his on my abdomen. "We have had more heart to hearts, it's almost like the old Nick I fell for is back and I love it. More honesty and passion and he's been doing really good at fighting it all." I lean back on him and smile at Joey from my heart.
"More respect, she's like she's your baby again," Joey smiles at us.
"Yeah." Nick kisses the side of my neck. "I'm glad to make her happy again."
His eyes travel to my belly, a single question passing through his mind at my little bit of fluff. "You've gotten soft in the middle there," he points out for Nick and I.
I look at my stomach and scowl. "Yeah, I gained five pounds since we took off and no matter what I do, it won't go away."
"How long has it been there?"
"A month, something like that."
"You should talk to Kelly."
I scoff at that idea. "It's the stress of touring, it'll go away during this break."
He raises his eyebrows at me, backing down all the same. Kelly comes in, trying to calm Briahna down and the little girl comes running into the kitchen. "Auntie Bean!" she squeals at the sight of me.
I smirk at this and sit up as she climbs the stool beside me to get into my lap, Nick sitting on the other side of me to allow me time with one of the most important people in life. "Bri, why didn't you listen to your mom? She said to calm down and not to run in the house."
"You're always gone," she quietly confesses, bowing her head in shame.
I see Nick grinning like a fool at the sight from my peripheral vision, my finger lifting Bri's eyes to meet my own and Joey watches so intently. "I'm always gone because I need to make sure that Nick is okay because he's been sick for a long time."
"What's wrong with him?"
"He used to be grumpy, really tired all the time and we found out that he's had a weak heart for sometime now. We had to disappear so he could relax during his last tour break and we had to change some of his junk food for healthy food and now we workout together," I explain, generalizing the whole thing.
"What does exercise and changing what he eats do to a weak heart?" she wonders, wanting to learn. If there's one thing I love about this child is that the switch for learning is always on and I haven't figured out if it's good or bad.
"You know how you walk more, your legs gets stronger?" She nods her head quickly, paying close attention. "Your heart is a muscle and if you treat it right, it's really strong. Exercise makes it squeeze and let go," I simplify it, demonstrating it with my hand, "and healthy food is kind of like gas to a car, you need food to work like a car needs gas to go anywhere."
"Oh! Okay. Stronger hearts are better than weak ones acuz they can deal with more 'tivity and you don't get so sleepy?" she reiterates, checking her hypothesis of my explaination.
"Yep, that's just it." I smile at the blonde curly haired and milk chocolate drop eyed child, Joey's personality mixed together with Kelly's perfectly and see a little Kelly in front of me. "Could you get your homework done and then mommy can come find us when you're all set with it?" I ask.
"Okay," she mumbles and I can tell she's Joey's, he hated homework as a child (I asked his parents, brother and sister years and years ago). I help her get down without an injury, watching her walk off to do as she's asked of.
Kelly comes into the kitchen and glances at me, wondering why we showed up early. She wants to know why I wanted to come talk to her and Joey. "Kel," I say to gain her attention.
"Beannie," she replies. The nickname? Oh, she gave it to me on the PopOdyssey Tour because she was exhausted from Briahna being the ball of energy she still is today and couldn't think of my name, only recalling Justin calling me Bean and Oshai calling me Oshannie. She took the two nicknames and blended them to come up with 'Beannie'. Only she can call me that, nobody else and that includes Joey. Briahna has always called me Auntie Bean since she could say it, first calling me just Bean and then she changed it when she could pronounce 'auntie'.
"Can I speak with you for a moment?"
"Alone?" she wonders, an eyebrow forming a perfect arch over her curious eyes.
"Yes," I confirm.
"Watch Bri," she tells Joey, patting his shoulder with a hand before signaling for me to follow her into the backyard. "What's going on?" she asks me, sitting at the table back here.
"Nick is dealing with withdrawls from alcohol and cocaine, but he's doing really well with it. Last time he had any alcohol, cocaine or marijuana was 3 months ago and I think quitting it all cold turkey is hard, but he's fought the urge to do any of it."
"Okay, you told her something about a weak heart," she recalls, pointing toward the house to indicate her young daughter.
"Nick found out he has a cardiomyopathy and if he didn't quit, he could die. He has changed his habits-he exercises and eats healthily now, gets enough sleep."
She leans on the table and absorbs all of this information. "The bruises?"
She saw the bruises? When? I have to play dumb. "What bruises?"
"You think they went unnoticed? You thought nobody saw them."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The ones on your back when you came by the summer before, the reason why you wore a dark colored shirt in the pool."
"That wasn't him, it was the monster."
"This is confidential, just between us."
"He used to get high, then almost anything would trigger his shorter than ever temper and I usually tried to keep it from happening, but mor often than not, I got the blows."
"Has he done it since getting clean?"
"No, since he's been clean, he's been the Nick I first fell for and got with back in the day. He's so sweet to me."
"If he ever lays a hand on you again, you call me. Do you understand? I don't care if it was just a small bit of drugs, you pick up your phone and tell me to come get you or you get the hell out of there."
She's beyond serious, scared for me. She looks me in the eye, a look that dares me to challenge her demand. "Promise."
"I noticed you're getting a bit, uhm, soft there," she comments, glancing over the table to my fluffy belly.
I lean back in the chair and drop my head into my hand, annoyed that she'd say that (she's the 15th person to say that). "It'll go away during the break, it's cuz of stress."
"I'll drop it if you take a test and it comes out negative."
"Fine, let's go do it," I groan, rising from my chair.
"You look at it," I tell her, sitting on the edge of the tub and scared, but hoping that it's negative.
She picks it up with her back to me. "JOEY!!!" she screams at the top of her lungs.
He bursts through the door and she shoves the test into his hands, shock coming across his face at the result. "Did you take it?"
"No, Beannie did."
His eyes go from the test to Kel to me and back again a few times. "You need to talk to Nick about this."
I swallow down my fear and finally stand up, snatching the test from Joey to look at it. Once I verify what it says, I drop to the floor with my legs in a W position and cry. "Nick! Get in here!"
He runs in and slides across part of the floor, his arms holding me. "What's wrong?" he asks, pressing his lips to my cheek.
"Look at that test," Joey tells him.
"I'm sorry," I say, sobs wracking my body and tears fall onto his shirt.
A few moments of silence pass before he speaks. "What does it mean?"
"It means she's pregnant," Kel informs him.
He makes me look at him and he smiles when our eyes meet, caressing my face in his hands. His lips crash into mine and he holds me close. "I know I'm not really ready, but if we're pregnant, what more can we do besides embrace it?"
What he says not only shocks me, but confuses me. "You-you're not mad?"
He laughs, his eyes shining with tears. "No way! Maybe we need to embrace it and see where it leads us in life. It could be why I had to get clean and why you came back to me, staying at my side through thick and thin for the past 3 years." He kisses my cheeks, a tear on each.
I thought he'd be pissed, want me to get rid of it or break things off. "So, you think?"
"We can raise the baby, stay together and do like Joey and Kelly did about Bri," Nick excitedly rambles.
"But what if you fall off the wagon?"
"We can look into somethings and see what we can do."
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