Packing for Sweden was probably the most difficult part of the whole thing. Just like when he had left with Lacey however many months ago (it felt like ages, it couldn't possibly have still been this same year, and yet it was), he was not entirely clear on how long they would be staying. He had his suspicions that Jeff had more of a plan than he had told Nick, given that he was the one who bought the tickets and probably had gone ahead and booked their return flight, too, but he wasn't letting on if that was the case.
But finally, it was about over. Their flight was going to be leaving in the morning, and then everything would be easier, just a couple flights with a couple hour layover somewhere Nick couldn't remember then vacation. And god, he was ready.
Nick moved his suitcase from his bed to the ground, flopping back to lay on his mattress. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment before closing his eyes, making the decision that maybe it was about time he took a nap. Just about as soon as he'd decided to do that, however, there was a warm body beside him and an arm around his waist.
"Hey," Jeff murmured into his ear, kissing his temple. "Are you hungry?"
"Not really," he mumbled in reply, shaking his head slightly.
"You sure?" he asked. "Because you haven't eaten in hours. And you're doing that stress thing, and I think that makes you more hungry. So you're probably hungry."
Nick opened his eyes again, looking over at him with a soft laugh. "Maybe I'm a little hungry. But I'm also tired."
"Noted," he said, nodding. He smiled at Nick and gave him a gentle squeeze. "How about this? We sleep for a little bit, and then we go eat. Your mom was telling me about this great Mediterranean place—"
"Yes," he said. "We're eating there."
"Alright, great," Jeff said, chuckling. He grabbed his phone and set an alarm to wake them up before snuggling into him more.
Nick smiled at him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head before relaxing and closing his eyes again. He wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, quickly starting to drift off to sleep.
The next thing he knew, the alarm Jeff had set was going off and he had to (very reluctantly) get up out of bed and get dressed so that they could go get dinner.
Dinner was pleasant, just like it always was when the two of them ate together. Lacey and Charlie tagged along with them, citing that they were about to lose their baby brother again for an unknown amount of time, so they wanted to make the most of it. And neither Nick nor Jeff minded, all of them having a good time together. They laughed and had fun and played word games and chattered about what Jeff had in store for Nick once they were in Sweden, none of them getting sad about the fact that this meal would be their last all together for a while (it was also one of the first that the group of four had had, and yet it felt like it was a tradition that was more well-established).
When it was over and they'd all gone home, Jeff stopped Nick when he was about to take his jacket back off.
"I want to go for a walk," he explained when he ended up on the receiving end of a strange look.
"You want to go for a walk?" Nick echoed.
"Yeah, I do," he said. "You live here, and we've barely seen any of it. And we're about to leave, so I deserve at least some kind of tour, don't you think, ducky?"
"Alright, I guess," he said, chuckling softly. "But it's not like I grew up here or anything, so it won't be that interesting."
"That's alright," Jeff said with a shrug, beaming at him as he took his hand and lead him back to the door.
As they walked, Nick did do his best to tell Jeff about landmarks they were passing, like the tree Lacey had fallen out of last summer and the path that lead down to a creek where you could catch frogs in the summer. Eventually, they ended up in a playground, abandoned by children hours ago when it started to get dark.
They sat side by side on the swings, Jeff challenging Nick to see which one of them could get higher. Upon winning, Jeff turned to look at him with a grin.
"Okay, I have something to admit," he said with a soft laugh. "I totally conned you. You never had a chance at winning. I am basically a pool shark of the swing world."
"That's a thing?" Nick asked, chuckling.
"Well, of course," he hummed. "But seriously, I was always the best kid at swinging."
"Really," he deadpanned, but the smile on his face betrayed his fondness.
"Yes, really," he said. "In fact, you know that thing where you try to go all the way over? You know, the whole three-sixty degrees? Yeah, I did that."
"No, you didn't," Nick said.
"I totally did," he said.
"I love you, Jeff, I do, but I am sure that you did not," he said.
Jeff shook his head. "Nope, I did. I was there. It happened."
"Babe, I'm really pretty damn sure that I saw that on Mythbusters and they said it wasn't possible," he chuckled.
"Well, they didn't see me," he said with a shrug. He reached out and took Nick's hand, smiling at him.
Nick rolled his eyes fondly at him, nodding. "Okay," he said. "Alright, I believe you."
"Yay, thank you," he said with a bright smile, lifting his hand and kissing it softly before lowering their hands again.
They sat like that for a bit, gently swaying with their hands swinging between them, before Nick spoke again. "We should probably head back home. Our flight is pretty early, so we should sleep."
"Or we could stay here a bit longer," he replied with a shrug. "We can always sleep on the plane. Hell, we should sleep on the plane. That makes it go by faster."
"But we could also sleep now," Nick replied with a soft laugh, shrugging. "Or both. I know that you are fully capable of sleeping ridiculous amounts of hours."
"Alright, that's true," he replied with a nod. "But let's just stay for, like, a little bit longer, okay? It's nice out."
"Okay," he said with a small nod, though in his opinion it was a bit cold out for that, but he was willing to accept it if Jeff wanted to stay out there for a bit longer. He looked up at the sky, the lack of many lights around them making it easier for him to spot the stars in the sky. He scanned the sky for constellations, finding what he thought might have been the Big Dipper but he really wasn't too sure. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Jeff was moving himself in closer to Nick. "Hi."
"Hey," Jeff said with a smile, squeezing his hand.
"You're close," he said, chuckling softly.
"This is true," he affirmed with a nod. "We're huddling. Like penguins, for warmth."
Nick nodded, wrapping an arm around Jeff and letting him rest his head on his shoulder.
"Remember that video where the one penguin falls over and all the others make that really cute noise?" he said.
He looked down at him, nodding. "Yeah," he said, chuckling. "That was a good one."
"Yeah, it was. Penguins are the best," he hummed. "Did you know that penguins mate for life?"
"I think I might have heard that at some point," he said, turning his head to press a kiss to Jeff's hair.
Jeff hummed happily. "During mating season, a penguin goes and he looks for the perfect pebble, and then when he finds it, he presents it to his potential mate. If they accept, they're mates for life," he said. "Isn't that cute?"
"Mmhm, it is," he hummed in agreement, smiling softly at him.
Jeff sat up a bit so that he could give Nick a soft kiss, their sides still pressed together. When he pulled back from the kiss, he pressed their foreheads together. "I love you," he whispered.
"I love you too," he said back, kissing him again.
Sitting back a bit more and pulling something out of his pocket, he went on, "I know that it isn't a pebble, but I think that that might be kind of preferable." He chuckled softly as he showed Nick what he was holding, a small black box which he opened to reveal a ring. Nick's heart started to pound at the sight and part of him wanted to interrupt him or take back the last couple of minutes just so that he might be able to put this moment off a bit longer, but he couldn't get his mouth to open or his tongue to form words. "I love you, and I know that I want you and me to be penguins together. I know that it's quick and it's probably crazy, but everything with us is. So please know that I've thought this through when I ask you, will you marry me?"
A big part of Nick wanted to say yes. In fact, that big part was roughly all of him. He wanted to say yes from the bottom of his heart, wanted to put that ring on his finger and kiss Jeff and hug him and marry him and spend the rest of his life with him. But there was still that doubt at the back of his mind, the voice reminding him of that goddamn elephant in the room: Natalie. Not only was she still waiting somewhere in the wings potentially with a baby that was half him that could potentially threaten his and Jeff's relationship, there was still the fact that this… This was so much like what had happened with her.
Their relationship was young. They were young. They lived pretty far apart. All of the doubts that Lacey had voiced with Lacey that he hadn't allowed himself to entertain were now bringing themselves to the front of his mind now, paralyzing him and freezing the word "yes" so that it couldn't get out of his mouth.
And there Jeff was, just staring at him patiently with that big smile on his face, that smile that he loved so so much, had from the very start, and he looked so much like a loving, trusting puppy that he could have sworn he felt physical pain as he stood up, shaking his head.
"Jeff, I… I'm so, so sorry. I love you, I just, I—I don't…" he trailed off, biting his lip.
Jeff looked down at the ring for a second before closing the box and putting it back in his pocket, nodding slowly. "Okay," he said, his voice thick though Nick knew he was trying to hide it. "I… I understand."
"I'm really sorry," he repeated.
"I know," he said, nodding.
"You should still go to Sweden. Just—"
Jeff shook his head, cutting him off. "You should come, too. Just because you said no doesn't mean that we can't still be together, my feelings haven't changed, and I know yours haven't, either, so we could just—"
"That's not a good idea, Jeff," he said, shaking his head. "It's not going to just go away. We're both going to be thinking about it the whole—"
"I don't care, Nick. I know that you love me and I love you and that's what's important and I am still confident that we're going to get married, even if it takes a while for you to get there."
"Please, no," Nick said, shaking his head slowly. He let out a long breath, feeling utterly deflated by the conversation. "Just… We'll spend tonight together, and then, in the morning, you are going to leave for Sweden and I am going to stay here."
Jeff bit his lip, taking a long moment before nodding. "Okay," he said finally, taking his hand again to walk home.
Laying in bed curled up together with their arms holding each other tight, neither of them acknowledged the tears on Jeff's face and the ones Nick was refusing to let fall; he was the one doing this, he shouldn't be the one crying about it.
They kissed and held each other tight and let hands run over skin like they always did (the farthest they had ever gone, and a quiet voice in the back of Nick's mind wondered if it was the farthest they ever would go). Nick could feel how Jeff was injecting every bit of emotion that he could into the kiss, and it made a part of him want to take it all back, to say he was just kidding when he said no and can he have the ring now?
But he didn't let himself do that. He just kissed Jeff back and let himself forget for the moment that this was more of a goodbye than anything else.
When he woke up, Jeff was gone. His side of the bed was cold, and the spot on the floor where his suitcase had been was now glaringly empty beside when Nick's luggage still sat.
He didn't get out of bed all day, letting himself stay there into the night.
He slept on and off, but spent a good amount of the day looking at the clock. He watched the important times tick by: when they had needed to get to the airport by, when their plane was going to take off, and eventually when their plane was going to land (that one took a little bit of math). He tried not to let himself imagine what Jeff was doing right then. He couldn't help himself, though, his mind filling with thoughts of Jeff out there all by himself, Jeff going through security by himself, Jeff sleeping on the plane with no one's shoulder to lean against, Jeff exploring their hotel room by himself.
The next morning, he woke up to find Lacey sneaking into his room and settling into bed beside him. She didn't say anything, just gave him a smile when she looked at him, and wrapped an arm around him. She laid there for a while, rubbing his belly like he was a sick puppy that would only get better with lots of cuddles. At first he wasn't sure whether it was more smothering or comforting, but eventually he settled on the latter.
"I'm guessing you want to know what happened," he said quietly after the silence started to get to be too much.
"At your pace," she said, nodding.
He sat in silence for a bit longer, knowing that as soon as he told Lacey what had happened, she would have a strong opinion one way or another (she always did; she had no idea what grey was) and part of him liked her just tacitly feeling bad for him.
Eventually, though, he ended up shifting around so that he could face her better.
"Okay, ready then?" she asked him, giving him an encouraging smile. "Because I really do want to know why Jeff left here and you didn't. Please tell me you didn't break up."
"Honestly… I don't know the answer to that question," Nick said with a small frown, furrowing his brow. "I don't… I don't think that we're broken up."
"Okay… That raises a lot more questions than it answers," she said. "But, like I said, your pace."
"Right," he said, sighing softly. "Well, the long and short of it is this: Jeff asked me to marry him."
For a split second, Lacey's face broke out into a wide smile, until she remembered the fact that Nick had by now been locked up in his room for over twenty-four hours and was decidedly not with Jeff, which didn't bode well. "And what did you say?"
"No," he said. "I said no."
She looked a bit pained for a second, regarding him with a small frown. "Why?"
"I don't know," he said, sighing. "I just… All I could think about when he asked that was Natalie."
"What?" she asked, her nose scrunching up in a way that at any other time he would have poked fun at her for. "Wait, hold on, we're not going down that road again, are we? Because that wasn't fun, remember how that ended?"
"No, No, I wasn't… That's not what I mean," he said. "I meant, like, I was thinking about how that ended, actually. And how you had warned me about—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, no, I don't like where this is going," she said, biting her lip.
"It all made sense, Lace. I'm barely older now than I was when you told me I was too young to get married, right? And Jeff and I have been dating for even less time than Natalie and I had been," he said.
"That… Okay, sure, maybe on a very basic level you could have a point there," she said. "But those are just general things. Some couples are ready when they're as young as you are, and when you know, you know, right?"
"I thought that I knew with Natalie," he pointed out. "And look how that turned out."
"Jeff is not Natalie, Nick," she said, shaking her head.
"I know he's not, but—"
"No, seriously, baby brother, listen to me," she said. "Jeff is not Natalie. From the very beginning, it was different. For example, remember how I didn't like the idea of you proposing to Natalie because I had never met her, much less even heard of her until you were about to propose? Well, when did you tell me about Jeff?"
"The day I met him, I guess, but... That's kind of different," he said.
"Is it? Even if you weren't romantically interested in him, you still told me about him. And you kept telling me about him. There was never a point during your relationship where I was out of the know. And just about as soon as you could have introduced him to the family, you did," she said.
"That was at his insistence, though."
"Which also speaks to his character," she said with a smile. "He takes your relationship seriously, and he wanted to meet your family."
"I never met his family," he said, shaking his head.
"You're nitpicking now," she said with a small frown.
"No, I'm not," he said, shaking his head. "It's an important step in a relationship that needs to be taken before you get married."
"And you don't think that Jeff would bring you to meet his family at his earlier convenience?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"I don't know, I mean, we were in California and he never said anything about it."
"Were you dating when you were in California?"
"Well, no, we got together once we were back east."
"Well, there you go," Lacey said, shrugging. "It would've been weird if you had gone to meet them then. Because trust me, there was absolutely that vibe of 'we want to bang' even when I first met him back in Pasadena, and his family surely would've known, too."
Nick couldn't help but let out a laugh at that. "I don't think 'we want to bang' is the right term for that vibe," he said.
"It is," she said, chuckling. "But that's not the point. He would totally introduce you to his family. Hey, tell me what you know about his family."
Nick paused for a moment before nodding and answering. "He has a sister, she's eight years old and she loves elephants. Her name is Bridgett but he calls her Birdy," he said. "His parents have always been, his words, disgustingly in love. There's also his uncle Henry, who he loves and is like another father to him. He has two dogs, Tucker and Daisy, who he says are just as important as family."
"Exactly," she said with a slight smirk.
"But still, it is a bit too early in our relationship for us to be talking realistically about marriage," he said, shaking his head.
"You can catch up," she chuckled.
"Okay, but what about the fact that we logistically have no idea what we're doing? We're not settled into our relationship enough to be sure it'll work. Jeff doesn't live here," he pointed out, shaking his head.
"Honestly, I think that that, while yes it is important, is a fairly small obstacle," she said. "I am pretty sure that boy would move anywhere to be with you in a heartbeat."
"I'm not sure that that's healthy, though," he said, frowning. "And I wouldn't want him to be across the country from his family, just like he wouldn't want me to be away from mine."
"So you'll talk about it," she said. "You'll work it out. Sure, house shopping while planning a wedding could be a bit tricky, but it is what it is. I know that if anybody could make it work, you could."
"I wish that I had the kind of confidence that you have in this," he sighed.
"You will," she assured him and gave him a small smile. She sat up, looking down at him with a soft sigh. "He wouldn't talk about his family that much if he didn't think you cared or wouldn't want you to meet them eventually. So, basically you're out of your mind for saying no to Jeff. But still, you okay?"
"Yeah, I guess so," he said with a heavy sigh, rubbing his hand over his face. "I… Maybe you're right. I don't know. I need to think about it more."
"Understandable," she said, leaning down and kissing his cheek softly. "Just… remember this for me. Jeff is not Natalie. Jeff would not cheat on you, I just know he's not that kind of person. You know what kind of person he is?"
"What kind of person is he?" he asked.
Lacey chuckled softly, smiling as she leaned down and kissed his cheek. "He's your forever person," she said. "The kind of person who you can run away from a million times but will still be there when you come back."
She squeezed his side before getting up and walking out of the room, leaving him feeling equal parts reassured and worried for his future.
A week later, he came to a couple of decisions: 1) Lacey was absolutely right and he needed to get Jeff back into his life, and 2) part of making sure that they would have a successful relationship would have to be making sure that there would be no more big surprises lobbed their way. That meant making a trip up to see Natalie, and to clear the air with her.
When he had told Charlie and Lacey about this, both of them had looked like they had wanted to protest but at the same time he knew they understood that he would never be at peace with the situation with her if he didn't face it head on. Charlie had offered to go along with him, but he declined, deciding that he might as well do this on his own. He wasn't worried anymore about maybe falling for her again; he was done with her and their relationship and more than anything else he just wanted to really be done with her.
Which is how he found himself, after a few phone calls and a long drive down the coast, waiting on her doorstep. He was doing some math in his head, trying to figure out based on how far along she had been in her pregnancy in June when he looked at her Facebook what she might look like now, since he had no way of keeping up with her once Bennett had stopped talking to her once he left. (The problem with his mental math plan of course being that he was terrible at math and only conclusion that he reached, really, was that she had to be pretty big now.)
Instead of looking "pretty big" at "pretty big" weeks along, when Natalie came to the door, he found her to be as skinny as she had been when he last saw her in person, if not thinner. For a moment he tried to do some recalculations, like maybe he was off by the several months it would have taken her to have had the baby and then subsequently lose the weight that came with pregnancy.
His train of thought was derailed when she sighed softly and said, "Yeah… I know what you're thinking, and yes, I do have some explaining to do."
"Okay…" he said slowly in lieu of anything else to say, in part because he wasn't entirely sure that she did know what he was thinking because he himself wasn't sure either.
She stepped back from the door to let him in, closing the door behind him then herding him to the living room. "Sit," she said, giving him a smile.
He took a seat on the loveseat she gestured to, having a quiet moment of gratefulness when she sat down on a recliner instead of beside him.
"So, as you have figured out by now, I'm not pregnant."
"Yeah, um, yeah, you're not," he said with a small nod, still not entirely sure what to do with that new information. When she didn't say anything for another long moment, he asked, "Were you, well… Were you ever?"
Natalie bit her lip, pausing for a moment before answering. "No," she said, shaking her head. "But I really thought that I was, at first. I wasn't really lying about that."
"You weren't really lying about that?" he repeated with one eyebrow raised.
"Well, yeah," she said with a sigh. "When I first called you and told you, I had taken a pregnancy test and it was positive. But when I sent you those messages with updates, I… Okay, yes, I had gone to the doctor and found out that I wasn't actually pregnant, it was just a false positive."
"What messages?"
"What? There were messages with details about the baby's progress… You didn't get those?"
"Nope," he said, shaking his head. He made himself hold back a comment about how weird and creepy that was given that there was no baby to speak of.
"I… I wish I had known that. I probably wouldn't have mentioned it," she said, biting her lip. "But, um, why wouldn't you have gotten them?"
"I don't know," he said with a shrug, shaking his head. "That's really not important. I'm more wondering why you felt that it was necessary to even send those…?"
She didn't say anything for a moment, looking bashful in a way that in the past would have made him forgive all her transgressions and also would have made Lacey gag. Lacey.
"Oh. That's probably it. My sister probably blocked your number when I had her delete it off my phone," he said, shaking his head slightly. Natalie looked a little bit hurt for a moment, so he repeated, "Why did you bother to send those messages if they weren't true?"
"Why do you think, Nick?" she asked, letting out a slightly exasperated breath. "I thought they might make you come back."
He furrowed his brow at her. "You, what? You wanted me to come back?"
"Of course I did, Nick," she said, shaking her head. "You were the best boyfriend anyone could have ever asked for. And I thought, you know, maybe if I kept messaging you and you thought about it, you might come back. And maybe you would realize that you still wanted to be with me…" She chuckled softly, her face getting serious again after a moment as she scooted forward and reached out to take his hands. "And we could still get back together, Nick, I still believe in us."
He resisted the urge to snatch his hands away from her, instead slowly pulling them away and shaking his head. "I'm sorry, but that's not going to happen," he said.
"Why not?" she asked, a slight pout to her lips. "We were so good together, weren't we? You can come back to school next semester and we can be the power couple again, just like before."
Nick shook his head slowly. There were plenty of things that he wanted to say to her, but he reminded himself that he was a nice guy and stopped himself. "I have a boyfriend now," he said instead, ignoring the fact that he was no longer sure whether or not that was true; he still hadn't talked to Jeff, partially because he was still working through his emotions and partially because he felt bad that he hadn't worked through his emotions. He figured that Jeff wouldn't argue if he had been there, considering his insistence that they were going to get married eventually.
"A… boyfriend?" she repeated, frowning. "A boyfriend?"
"Yeah, a boyfriend," he said, nodding. "Like a girlfriend, but a guy."
"You're gay?" she asked.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "Not gay. Maybe bi, I don't really know, but it doesn't matter. What does matter is that I have a boyfriend who I love and so you and I are never going to happen again."
Natalie nodded slowly, biting her lip. "So… That's what you've been up to all this time. You left school and you ran around the country and you ended up with a boyfriend." She let out a long breath, shaking her head slowly. "I wish that I could be mad at you, but I can't find it in me to be."
"Well, good," he said, nodding slowly. "I wish that I could be mad at you, too. For entirely different sorts of reasons, I guess."
"That's true," she said, chuckling softly.
They chatted for a big longer, her giving him more details about what had happened after his departure, until eventually he stood up to leave. He let her pull him in for a hug, smiling softly as she said softly into his ear, "Even though we didn't work out, I'm still glad that I could be a part of your journey."
Nick gave her a small smile, nodding. "I'm glad you can see it that way," he said, chuckling softly as he turned to start to leave.
"Hey, Nick?" she asked, making him look back at her.
"Yeah?"
"Where are you headed off to now? Home? I could make you some food or something—"
"I think that I'll be heading to Sweden, so thank you, but I don't know if it'll hold," he chuckled, smiling softly at the very confused look on her face as he closed the door behind him and went out to his car.