He was beautiful in both spirit and body as he stood there, concern radiating from his eyes, hair wild from sleep, clothes wrinkled from being grabbed at and thrown on in thoughtlessness.
"How are they?" he asked and I suddenly realized that his concern was mixed with excitement. Like the rest of us, he couldn't wait to see A.J. and Annie's newest miracle.
"They are doing beautifully, Nick. Now we just wait," Denise said, smiling at the man who was still a boy in so many ways.
I heard his sigh of relief before he suddenly turned in my direction. I'm not sure what I did, gasp, moan, say something, but whatever it was caused Jamie question me.
"You okay, Jack?" he asked me.
"Yeah, love. I'm fine," I answered, but couldn't bring myself to look away from Nick.
"You're Jack Walker?" Nick asked.
I buried my face in Jamie's neck then in an attempt to hide my laughter.
There was the Nick that I knew and here we were again, back where we always seemed to start.
"That's me," I finally said, unable to hide my grin.
It was nearly four o'clock in the morning, we were standing in the hospital waiting room surrounding by the rest of the Backstreet family, Jamie in my arms, and Annie in labor, but we were having the same damn conversation we always did. It was too funny.
"I thought-" but I cut him off.
"That I was a man. You always do Carter, and every time I see you we have this little song and dance. Tonight though is just too weird to dance that dance. And on that note, the love of my life and I are going to get some juice. Anybody want coffee?" I asked, looking at the various other faces as I adjusted Jamie on my hip.
Nick was stunned. So stunned he couldn't speak. He just stared at me like I was a puzzle with pieces missing, I made no sense.
Truth was, he was probably right. There aren't many women named Jack in the world so it would be natural to assume the name belonged to a man. Yet here I was a woman among all the people I loved and he knew nothing about me except that his idle curiosity about my name led me to laugh at him. He must have thought I was crazy.
I took orders for coffee, kissed Kymmi good-bye as she was leaving to go back and help Leighanne, then slipping Jamie to his feet, turned toward the cafeteria.
"Hold on. I'll come with you and give you a hand," Nick offered.
You would think that at my age I would be able to handle most things that life threw at me without missing a beat. So why was it that as soon as he said those words I stumbled?
"Hey, careful," he said, reaching to give me a hand. It was like being set on fire the moment he touched me. I jerked my arm from his light grasp. "Sorry," he mumbled.
Oh hell! I hadn't meant to offend the kid.
"No, I'm sorry. I'm just not use to tripping over my own two feet. Makes me feel like an idiot when people have to help because I screwed up," I confessed. What the hell was that? my mind screamed! I've never told anyone that in my entire life so what the hell was I doing telling Nick Carter?
"Don't worry about it. Trust me I know the feeling," he assured me with a gentle laugh.
No, no, no! I didn't want to like him, didn't want to know him, didn't want him to be kind to me. What I wanted was to pretend he had a whole other Annie to love so that he wasn't there with Jamie and I waiting. I didn't want to see the love in his eyes when he looked at Jamie or hear his laughter or see his smile or smell the cologne that lingered on him. I didn't want him to be real. At least not real and this close to my life.
"Hey, Jack?" Jamie questioned.
"Yeah, love?" I answered.
"You know I'll always catch you if you fall."
And for the first time in my life I wanted to hear a man say those words.
With Nick to my right and Jamie's small hand firmly grasping mine I had a moment where I wanted what Annie and A.J. had, what Howie and Kymmi made flourish, what Kevin and Kristen made shine, and what Brian and Leighanne made beautiful. Looking into those soulful brown eyes I wanted to know what it was like to be loved so completely, but a moment later I realized something. I already was. Jamie loved me without restraint and in my heart I knew he would never walk away from me.
"That's why I call you love. Because you give it so unconditionally," I said, kneeling to hug him. Maybe if he were thirty years older I would have been crazy enough to give love a chance. But he wasn't and I wasn't so I wasn't going to waste my time thinking about it.
You see my parents had the world's greatest love affair. Or so my father and brothers have told me. My mother died of cancer when I was two so all I know are the stories.
She was beautiful, he was handsome. She made him laugh, he never let her cry. They were happy and complete like two kids who knew all the world's secrets but didn't care. All that mattered was the two of them and eventually my brothers and I. They had the kind of magic and love songs were written about, the kind people spent their whole lives hoping for.
The kind I never wanted to experience. I knew about the joys of love.
All the great things, the wonderful things that came from sharing your heart
with someone else. I knew all of it. I knew about all the beauty.
I also knew about the dark side of love though. I knew about seeing my
father spending hours staring at my mother's pictures missing her. I knew
about my brothers' locking themselves away for weeks after having their
hearts broken. I knew about feeling alone and lost, incomplete and
inadequate, small and helpless.
I had stories of the one true love, but reality was the heartache when
half of that love was gone.
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