Part 21: Apology Tour

For what seemed like an eternity, Nick sat quietly and watched Chelsea put their smokescreen in place. She called Hope and asked for permission to stay at the house, which Hope easily granted. She called her Aunt Kayla to ask if there would be time to meet for lunch. ("I'm just saying it so Kayla will mention to people that we're coming," she whispered aside to Nick. "I won't leave you alone for one second while we're there. And you definitely don't have to have lunch or any other meal with anyone.")

Then it got worse. Chelsea called Abby and told her that Nick would like to see her in person and apologize. Even from across the room, listening through a rough cell phone connection, Nick heard Abby's shocked intake of breath and her hesitation before she agreed.

Then it got even worse. Chelsea made a string of phone calls to the Women's Correctional Facility as well as to her Uncle Roman (in case strings needed pulling) to get permission for Nick to see Gabi. Gabi, through the chain of guards and administrators and case workers, agreed in record time that she would see Nick. Nick felt like more than a bit of a coward for being disappointed that she had.

Then it got worst of all when Chelsea called Will. She informed Will that she was warning him about Nick's plans so that he didn't hear about their visit elsewhere and worry. At Nick's request, Chelsea told Will that Nick would not include Will and Sonny on his apology tour unless Will and Sonny wanted to be included. Will very distinctly agreed that the best way for Nick to make amends would be to stay the hell away. Chelsea assured Will that they would not seek him out, but would be visiting Abigail and Gabi and would be staying in Hope's house.

Their plans made, it took Chelsea only a moment to purchase airline tickets and print boarding passes.

There was a certain symmetry to that that Nick liked, at least. Their romance had begun in earnest when they'd flown to Canada together to help Shawn-D and his family many years ago. Now they would have one last family rescue mission just as their romantic connection was well and truly severed forever.

Not that Nick hadn't enjoyed the kiss in his room at the Smith Center.

Because he had.

He and Chelsea had had plenty of problems as a young couple in love, but they'd never had a problem with kissing. The kissing had always been great.

And Chelsea was beautiful. There was never going to be a time when he didn't think Chelsea was beautiful.

On that flight to Canada, he'd been crazed with nerves because he'd been so attracted to Chelsea and so afraid that spending hours in her presence would give her an opportunity to realize that he'd had sex with her mother.

The whole thing had culminated in him screaming, for the whole plane to hear, that Chelsea should shut up about his (lack of) virginity.

It was a miracle that they'd ever made it to Canada.

It was also a miracle that Chelsea had ever forgiven him for the little matter of his one night stand with Billie.

Now he needed one more miracle to help him survive the next 48 hours.

He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or annoyed when Chelsea announced that they were going to spend the whole flight making plans. A distraction would be good, but making plans didn't exactly count as a distraction. If Chelsea wanted to discuss in depth what Nick was going to say to Abigail, or Gabi, or God forbid Will if Will changed his mind and wanted to talk, this plane ride would be even more insufferable than the infamous virginity plane ride.

Chelsea grabbed Nick's hand as the plane climbed higher in the sky. "The first thing we need to decide," she said, twisting their joined hands so that he was looking at her perfectly manicured nails, "is what color I should paint my nails tonight."

"They look perfect now," he told her. He decided not to think about how they had used to feel running through his hair or down his back. At least, he wasn't going to think about that very much.

"That is not helpful, Nicholas," she said primly. She pulled a bag of nail polish from the purse tucked beneath the seat in front of her.

"Are you even allowed to have those on a plane?" he asked.

"Still not helpful." She dumped them in his lap. "Tell me what the gold one's called, again?"

Reluctantly, Nick picked it up to look. He couldn't resist a surprised laugh. "Bond, Ionic Bond," he read.

"The silver?"

"Asteroid."

"Red?"

"Atom and Eve."

"Purple?"

"Big Bang. Chelsea, this crap sounds like I named it."

"I knew there was a reason I liked it," said Chelsea. "What's the green one called?"

"Mr. Positivity."

All of a sudden, Chelsea's cheshire smile was bittersweet. "I know you aren't going to be him again, not all the time. But I know that you can be him sometimes, like when you came up with this idea. So thank you."

"You're welcome," he said, and it felt like I love you, which was inconvenient and inappropriate and otherwise just sucked.

Chelsea, willfully ignorant of anything that might be going on in Nick's head, threw the nail polish back into her bag and withdrew a magazine instead. She flipped it open, too quickly, to a quiz.

"We're not doing this again," he told her.

"It's been almost ten years," she said. "We can take Cosmo quizzes on a plane once every ten years."

"We have to come back and do this again in 2024?" he asked.

Chelsea rolled her eyes. "This quiz is called 'what color is your inner fire?'"

Nick sighed, resigned to the fact that he was not going to win this battle.

"What color looks best on you?" Chelsea began.

"Black," Nick said. He might have graduated from the Smith Center's program, but he was returning to Salem where he would always be a villain.

"You need to take this seriously," said Chelsea.

"I am!"

"Everyone knows the answer is blue. It brings out your eyes."

"No one needs to see my eyes."

"That's a waste," said Chelsea with a shrug.

She was still flirting with him. He couldn't believe it.

"Okay," Chelsea agreed. "I'll give you this one. Black it is. You look good in most colors anyway. Once you outgrew trying to wear those weird orange plaids and whatever."

"Don't remind me of that."

"It's seared into my memory," said Chelsea sweetly. "You don't get to escape. Moving on. You have a big work or school test due tomorrow but haven't begun studying. What do you do?'"

"Never would have happened," said Nick.

"Not even if your girlfriend insisted that you stay out all night hiding a hairbrush or staking out a rapist's frat house?"

"Skip studying because I probably know it anyway."

"That's probably true, but the answer that they have as an option is 'skip studying and pray you'll do okay.' We'll put that. Moving on. Is your dream job doctor, lawyer, politician, painter, singer, or circus performer?"

"I think I have the most chance of getting hired as a circus performer."

"That's not what the question asked."

"That's what all jobs are, really."

"An interesting philosophical position," Chelsea mused. "All right. How much time do you spend watching TV each week? There's no option for you've been banned from all media of any kind for months, so we'll put the lowest one. What Michael Jackson song do you enjoy most? And you can't say Billie Jean because that's creepy to me."

"Bad." That was obvious. Smooth Criminal was too on the nose.

"Solid choice. If you could pick a tree to climb, which one would it be?"

Nick studied the pictures. All of the trees were beautiful.

There was one with a gnarled trunk that would be easy to climb; he might have picked that when he was younger. Now, he wished for more of a challenge. He could survive anything.

There was one that was completely isolated. He would have chosen that a few months before. That didn't seem right, either.

There was one that was offbeat and quirky, and he nearly chose that one.

But the fourth was covered in orange autumn leaves. It was redefining itself to weather a new season and would come back stronger the next year. "That one," he told Chelsea.

"I would have picked it, too," she told him quietly. "It reminds me of the beginning of a school year. Where there was always a new chance to be something more than what you were before."

He nodded stiffly.

"Last one," said Chelsea. "What scares you? Spiders, snakes, heights, or water?"

"Those are all irrational fears."

"Snakes, then," said Chelsea. "The metaphorical kind."

"Good call," Nick agreed.

Chelsea took a moment to do the calculations, and he noticed that her breathing changed just a little as she finished.

"What?"

"Your inner fire is yellow," she read. "You are an explorer, who likes to try a little of everything in life. Not always up to testing out new things first, you're more likely to get recommendations from those you trust before adventuring out into the world. You have a passion for knowledge, and are likely to be an avid reader. You tend to like to spend time with your friends and family, and any new adventure you go on will be with someone you care about."

She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes.

"It's not wrong," he admitted.

"Good," she told him.

And that was how Nick survived his trip back to Salem.

They took a cab from the airport to Hope's house. Hope had given Chelsea a code to open the garage door and another code to enter the house from the garage.

Nick and Chelsea stomped around turning on lights and opening doors for half an hour before they drove Hope's car to the prison.

Nick didn't see any sign of Bo. He didn't know whether Chelsea did. He didn't ask. If they wanted him to know, they would tell him.

Chelsea had no way of making Nick forget his anxiety as they approached the prison. For one thing, she was driving and didn't have her hands free to distract him with nail polish and terrible magazines.

For another, this was Salem, and this was prison, and this was Gabi. There were too many reasons that Nick felt ready to throw up for anyone to distract him.

He briefly wondered if Bo had stowed away in the trunk of the car. Escaping a tail by sneaking into prison seemed like an interesting plan.

(The guards did, of course, check to see that the trunk was empty when the car approached the prison gates.)

Chelsea and Nick were greeted by Roman and Rafe. Roman hugged Chelsea affectionately. Rafe glared silently at Nick and trailed his fingers over the gun at his hip.

Chelsea did all of the talking until the guard demanded that Nick, as the actual visitor, answer for himself. Chelsea trailed her hand over his back as she stepped away, and the look of utter disgust that Rafe sent in their direction made Nick want to turn around and run.

He almost took a step toward the door before he realized that Chelsea was glowering back at Rafe.

Rafe wasn't wrong; Nick knew that. Rafe had every right to hold a grudge until eternity against his little sister's ex-husband. (Nick didn't have sisters, but he knew that that was a rule. If Shawn-Douglas had been there, no doubt he would have been glaring at Nick, too, and taking Chelsea outside for a serious conversation about her poor taste in crushes.)

Even knowing all of that, though, the idea that Chelsea wanted to defend him made him remember that he was here to protect her. This was a diversion. The conversation with Gabi would be real because Gabi deserved that. Otherwise, Nick was an actor playing a part so that no one would be suspicious of Chelsea's reason for appearing in Salem.

When one of the guards patted him down, he didn't snap a neutral mask over his face the way he had learned to do when he had been the one in prison. Instead, he smiled uncomfortably like he might have done before his life had gone to hell along with Trent Robbins.

Roman raised an interested eyebrow. Chelsea nodded encouragingly. Rafe continued to glare, and then submitted to his own groping. It appeared that Rafe would be accompanying Nick.

Nick didn't object. If that was what Gabi wanted, that was what Gabi got.

His head spun and his hands went numb when he saw her behind the glass in an orange jumpsuit. He had wanted so badly to protect her, once, and now here she was in the worst place that he had ever been.

"Are you all right?" he asked hoarsely.

Gabi was pale and shaking. "I think I should be asking you that."

"But I asked you," he said, and the feeling was still there, the urge to protect. He got as close to the glass as he dared, not wanting to be reprimanded or removed by the guards. "I don't see any bruises on you, but they don't always leave bruises."

"I'm okay," she said. "What happened to you hasn't happened to me."

"But if it did, you'd tell your brother, right?" Suddenly Nick was grateful for Rafe's glare. "You'd go to him right away?"

"Yes," said Gabi, and Nick knew from her tone that she'd had this conversation before.

Nick might have been imagining it, but he thought that Rafe looked slightly mollified. Very, very slightly.

"Good," said Nick. "Because you're really lucky to have people who care about you checking up on you."

"Am I supposed to feel bad for you because you didn't?"

"You're supposed to feel bad for me because I was too stupid to let them. Or ask for them. Hiding doesn't help."

"I'm not hiding anything."

"You decided to shoot me because you didn't want to ask anyone else to help keep me away from you and Ari. You didn't even start with asking me to stay away from you and Ari," said Nick. He hadn't known how much that had bothered him until he said it out loud.

"I didn't think anyone could help," said Gabi. "I thought you would just outsmart everyone else. You're kind of a genius, you know."

"I'm not," said Nick. "If I were, I never would have ended up where I am."

"Where is that?"

"Talking to my ex-wife about why she tried to kill me."

"You came here to ask me that?"

"I came here to apologize."

Gabi gestured that he should go ahead.

"I can't apologize until I'm sure of what I'm apologizing for."

Rafe snorted audibly. Gabi's expression of disbelief was only slightly more polite.

Fine.

Nick could do this.

"I'm sorry that I pushed you to formalize a custody agreement when the informal agreement was giving you and Will and Ari everything any of you wanted."

Something at the edge of Gabi's eyes softened.

"I'm sorry that I said hateful and bigoted things to your child's father, especially knowing how much you love him."

Gabi raised an eyebrow. "Did you say that to Will?"

"Will doesn't want to talk to me, and I'm doing him the favor of staying away. It's not about me, it's about him, right?"

"Go on," said Gabi.

"I apologize for threatening to blackmail the people you love, because when I hurt them, I hurt you."

"And also because you shouldn't blackmail people at all?" asked Gabi.

Nick almost laughed. For the moment he was willing to ignore the fact that Gabi had always been delighted and grateful when he'd blackmailed on her behalf. "That too. And I'm sorry that I wasn't honest with you to begin with, before we got married. I'm sorry I told you that that lie of omission meant that I couldn't have loved you. Because I did love you. As messed up as I was, loving you was real, and that I said otherwise once shouldn't make you feel like less than what you are."

"Are you with her now?" asked Gabi.

In the moment, Nick didn't know what she meant, and it must have been clear from his face, because Gabi explained without prompting.

"Your ex-girlfriend who set this up. Are you back with her?"

"No."

"Do you want to be?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because the last woman I was involved with shot me in the back!" Nick snapped. "And I'm not even speaking metaphorically! I might be slow on the uptake, but I did take the hint when you decided to kill me because you didn't think there was any other way to get rid of me."

"I'm sorry," said Gabi. "I accept your apology, and I'm sorry I shot you."

"It's all right," Nick said begrudgingly. "I accept your apology. No permanent damage done."

"I'm really glad I'm a lousy shot."

"You did hit me three times."

"It was point blank range, though. Shouldn't you be dead?"

"I don't know," said Nick.

Gabi looked sad. "And I'm sorry that we were so toxic together that we can't ever be friends."

"Me too," Nick said. "If there's some kind of parole hearing that I can speak at to get you back to Ari sooner, I will. Otherwise, I'll be as far out of your way as I can."

"How long are you staying in Salem?"

"A few days." A humorless smile twisted the corner of his lip. "Salem and I don't mix very well. I wish we did. It's my family's home, but it can't be mine."

"Funny how home never ends up being what you think it was supposed to be," said Gabi, and the guard signaled that their time was up.

Nick didn't have the energy to say anything on the drive away from the prison, and when he asked Chelsea to stop talking and just turn on the radio, she acquiesced. His skin crawled for miles and miles after the prison vanished from their rearview mirror.

They stopped at Hope's house between leaving the prison and meeting with Abigail. This time Nick knew that he heard Bo's voice. He pretended that he didn't.

This time, he noticed that the trunk of the car was weighted just so. He pretended not to notice that, either.

And of course he didn't notice when Chelsea parked the car down the block from their destination, near a shady cul-de-sac with no one in sight.

"It looks the same," Nick told Chelsea lamely when they were in front of the Horton house. He was too drained to come up with a more useful observation. Seeing Abigail wasn't anything like as stressful as seeing Gabi, but it was still something that would be better when it was over.

"It's probably looked the same since your great-grandparents built it," said Chelsea, playing along with the small talk. "When was that? The Great Depression?"

"I think so."

"Someone must have remodeled it at some point, then."

"My grandmother says the front door is practically the only thing that's original."

They both stared at it. It was the same door that Tom and Alice had opened when they'd brought each of their five children home for the first time. Uncle Tommy had walked through that door when he'd returned from Korea, scarred and not remembering his past. Aunt Addie had walked through that door when she'd announced that she had married her daughter's boyfriend. Uncle Mickey and Uncle Bill had walked through it together even when Uncle Bill had been harboring the uneasy secret of Mike's true paternity. And this door had been open to Nick's own grandmother while mourned a broken engagement and a miscarriage.

It had continued on to the next generation, when Nick's mother and her cousins had sought their grandparents' counsel and shelter. And then they had had children themselves. Shawn-Douglas and Jeremy. Nathan and Will. And Abby and Nick.

"You okay?" asked Chelsea gently.

"Yeah," said Nick. "Just thinking about how many people in my family stood right here and looked at that door. They used to come to my great-grandparents to fix everything. Absolve them of everything. It's peaceful, in a way, knowing that. Knowing that everyone stood in this same place, thinking the same thing."

"Thinking what?"

"I screwed up."

"Yes, you did," said Abigail, and she flung the door open.

"Eavesdropping isn't very nice," said Chelsea. She was at Nick's hip again, ready to defend him from all comers.

Abby made a face at Chelsea. "It's not eavesdropping if you're having the conversation on my actual doorstep."

"I don't think it works that way," said Chelsea.

"Oh, it really does," said Abby, and all of a sudden the two of them were hugging each other and laughing. "It's good to see you."

"It's good to see you too. I've missed you."

"You too." Abby pulled away and considered Nick. "And it's good to see you," she said, and if her voice was a bit more conflicted than it had been when she was hugging Chelsea, then Nick deserved that. "Do you want to come in, or do you want to stare at the door some more?"

"I think I'm done staring," said Nick. He was squeamish again as the familiar smell unique to the Horton living room seeped into his lungs. He'd never been quite sure what the smell was. The echo of tens of thousands of doughnuts, perhaps.

"I do that too, sometimes," said Abby. "Not with the front door. Usually with Great-Grandma's chair." She pointed at the chair in question. "I sit in it and I wonder who I think I am. But it's where I feel closest to her, too, like I'm going to get good advice just by being in that space." An inscrutable smile crossed her features and she pointed again. "Sit down."

"Are you trying to make him more uncomfortable?" asked Chelsea.

"Does he need you to protect him from me?" asked Abby. "Go upstairs and say hi to JJ or something." Chelsea cut her gaze uneasily to Nick, as if asking permission. Abby rolled her eyes. "Fine, stay," she corrected.

Nick knew that he should have told Chelsea that he could handle this conversation without her, but the words died in his throat.

"This will be fun," said Chelsea cheerily. "I can be the arbitrator like Abby used to be between Nick and me."

"That wasn't fun," said Abby.

"Then why did you keep doing it?" asked Chelsea.

"Because I loved you both and wanted you to be happy."

"I love you, too," said Chelsea, before turning her attention back to Nick. "So is Grandma Alice's chair giving you wisdom?"

Nick thought about it. If he could stare at a door and feel some kind of connection to generations of family members, why couldn't he feel the force that Abby claimed came with the chair?

He didn't feel anything except awkward.

"I didn't know her as well as you did," he told Abby. "You were her favorite great-grandchild. You and Shawn."

"Shawn was everyone's favorite," said Chelsea with a playful wink.

"She spent the most time with Shawn and me," said Abby. "We were lucky. But I guarantee you she didn't have favorites. She loved all of us. It was what made her so special. When you stayed with Maggie for a few weeks that one summer, Great-Gram didn't stop talking for a year about how wonderful it was to have you close. How smart you were, how kind, how proud Grandpa Tom would have been of your science projects. All of us who lived here were like, 'what are we, chopped liver?'"

Nick nodded. A lump rose in his throat that he didn't care to acknowledge.

"At least you remember her," said Abby. "JJ doesn't at all, and I hate that for him. So my mom and I, we talk about making sure he knows her through her legacy. And her legacy is things like the volunteer program at the hospital and the Horton Center. But her legacy is also the people she touched, trying to live their lives the way she lived hers. So you know what, Nick?"

"What?" he managed.

"Chelsea told me that you wanted to come to Salem for a day or two to apologize to the people you weren't very nice to. Don't apologize to me. You don't have to. I forgive you. It hurt like crazy when I thought you were dead and I'm glad you're here."

It took everything in him not to cry. "I'm going to apologize anyway," he told her. "Because you didn't deserve to be called EJ DiMera's whore." The words tasted dirty in his mouth. "And because I didn't think about how you would be hurt when I arranged to have the pictures of you and EJ sent to Sami if anything happened to me."

"So that was how Chelsea knew to warn me about Sami." Abby glanced at Chelsea and nodded like this was confirmation of something she'd already realized. "Thanks for the heads up."

"I'm glad you're okay. Sami can be really dangerous when she's mad. Believe me, I know."

"I know you do." Abby looked at the floor. "I should apologize to you, too."

"Please don't," said Nick. "Gabi did, and I don't think I could take it twice in one day."

"Gabi should have," chimed in Chelsea from her perch on the far end of the couch. "Gabi shot you three times at point blank range. Read your own medical records. Your body was a mess."

"Is he okay now?" Abby asked Chelsea.

"He's doing better all the time. No permanent damage," said Chelsea. "Oh, Nick, is it okay if I talk about your confidential medical records with your cousin?"

Nick appreciated the opportunity to smile. "Sure."

"Well now that that's settled," said Abby. "I'm sorry. The reason EJ and I ended up at the cabin together in the first place was because I was really close to figuring out what Sami did to you. I should have kept pushing for justice instead of… God." Abby buried her face in her hands. "You do not have the family monopoly on making mistakes, you know?"

"It felt like it for a while," said Nick.

"We all feel that way. JJ thinks he's the worst Horton in Horton history because he sold drugs. I didn't know how I was going to face my family after I had that affair with EJ. Even Will, when he came out, he was worried about what it would look like. We all do this."

"And the crazier thing is that we always have," Nick mused aloud. "Like when my Grandma gave my Mom up for adoption because nice girls don't have babies out of wedlock."

"And when my Grandpa Bill went to jail because otherwise he would have had to admit that he had a kid by his brother's wife."

"Julie says there's stuff I don't even know."

"How bad can the stuff we don't know possibly be?" She shook her head. "Don't answer that. Just be happy and healthy."

Nick took that as his cue and stood up to go. "You too, Abigail. I know you're going to have a wonderful life."

"You're going to be a part of it," she prompted. "We're family."

"From a distance. I don't think I'll be in Salem again."

Abby, unlike Gabi, looked bothered by the possibility. "You have to come back sometimes. Maybe not to live, but to hang your ornament on the tree at Christmas? For a big family wedding?"

Nick didn't know what to say.

"Then I'll come visit you," Abby decided, and she hugged Nick hard. This time he couldn't stop a tear from falling down his cheek, and he brushed it away as discreetly as he could.

"Love you," she said as she ushered them both out. She whispered something in Chelsea's ear, but Nick was staring rigidly ahead and didn't know what it might have been.

Neither Nick nor Chelsea had an appetite that night. Chelsea couldn't sit still, and Nick told her more than once that she should go out if that would take the edge off of her nerves. Chelsea had always been one to seek noise and crowds and energy when she was upset about something.

"No way," said Chelsea. "I'm not leaving you alone."

"I don't need a baby-sitter," he said, as kindly as he could manage.

"I promised your parents I wouldn't leave you."

"What they don't know won't hurt them."

"I don't care. I promised."

"Who are you and what have you done with Chelsea Brady?"

"I'm grown up Chelsea Brady who understands about responsibility," said Chelsea. "Didn't you always want that for me?"

"I'm not your responsibility."

"You came to Salem for me, and you had a horrible day for me. You kind of are my responsibility."

"It wasn't horrible," said Nick. It was more like getting that overused word… closure.

"You won't eat and you've barely said a word all day except to Abigail and Gabi. And you keep squirming around like you're in pain."

"It feels like my skin's crawling," Nick admitted. "I wish I could just throw myself into an ice flow or something to cool down."

Chelsea's face lit up delight. "Nick Fallon. You're a genius."

"I know, but why?" he asked, falling into the old response automatically.

"Hope doesn't have an ice flow, but she does have a swimming pool in the back yard."

"It's October."

"So it'll be nice and cool."

"Did you bring a swimsuit? Because I didn't."

"I'm sure one of my old ones is around here somewhere, and one of Shawn's for you. Or else we can just go skinny dipping." She wiggled her eyebrows. "I'm not hitting on you, I swear. But it's not like I haven't seen everything you've got before, and vice versa."

"We're not skinny dipping," said Nick.

He remembered all the times he'd said that they weren't going to steal evidence in an open criminal investigation, and they weren't going to stake out a frat house to see what Ford Decker did, and they weren't going to make out in the middle of the Brady Pub at lunchtime.

Of course they went skinny dipping.

"We're on private property," Chelsea rationalized. "And it's dark. We won't turn on any of the lights. No one will see anything."

The water was freezing, and Nick reveled gratefully in the shock for a moment before he began to swim. The effort kept him warm, but he was exhausted after a few laps. Chelsea was good at physical therapy; she wasn't that good.

"Any cramps?" asked Chelsea as she swam up to him.

Chelsea, naked and wet in the moonlight, was as beautiful as she had ever been. Nick reached out to draw her closer to him. He didn't care for the idea of her being so far away.

"Fine," he breathed. "Just, probably going to get cold in a minute."

"Me too," she said.

He didn't care for the idea of Chelsea being cold, either. "We can't have that," he murmured, and pulled her even closer. When she put her arms around his neck, he took that as a sign that she wouldn't entirely mind if he kissed her.

His tired body shocked deliciously back to life when it tasted Chelsea. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he groaned. He knew in that moment that his vow of celibacy wasn't going to last the year. It might not last the night.

Chelsea giggled against his mouth but refrained from mentioning that he was aroused and kissing her and running his hands over every bit of her naked body that he could reach. He didn't need the lights that they hadn't turned on; he didn't need the moonlight that made her whole body sparkle like an otherworldly being. He knew her by heart. He always had.

That was when they were blinded by the beam of an industrial strength flashlight.

To be continued.

Auxiliary Disclaimer: The nail polish colors are by Formula X. In my experience (because I know you read this fic for nail polish recs), the product is awful but the names are hilarious. It's too bad they don't have Nick working out their formulas….

The inner fire quiz is from , in case you need to check the color of your inner fire. It amused me to no end that I really did get the answer about going on adventures with someone you care about from filling out the quiz as Nick with help from Chelsea.