Eighteen: The Perfect End to a Perfect Night

A disheveled Larry paced before the lobby staircase where a group of very ashamed exhibits sat.

"I honestly don't know what happened out there tonight guys, but it was really, really weird." He turned to Teddy who was standing off to the side with Sac. "I mean, Teddy, what were you doing pointing a gun at me?"

"Forgive me, Lawrence," said the president sorrowfully. "I don't know what came over me."

"Do you even remember that?"

"Not at all."

Dexter chittered.

"Hey you're not innocent here either, Dexter. You almost ripped my face off!"

Dexter chittered again, this time it sounding a lot like laughter, and he stuck his tongue out.

"Ah give him a break, Gigantor, can't you see he feels terrible? Hell, we all do!" cried Jed.

Larry rubbed his hands over his face. "I have McPhee to face, the board to face, the chairwoman to face - I have to come up with some sort of explanation. And I was going to propose to my girlfriend tonight, but I guess that's not happening anymore." Nat wasn't present, she and Ahk had gone to inspect the tablet again.

There was silence. Everyone felt awful.

"Look, I don't even know where to begin figuring tonight out, or if it was even real. I know how much you guys love this night program, and I love it too but now we're really going to have to get things back together if we want to continue this. So first thing's first: we figure this out." With that, the unpleasant meeting drew to a close.

Both exhausted and confused, Larry and Nat returned to their Manhattan apartment. While they were getting on the elevator, Larry's cell phone rang.

He looked at it and sighed. "It's Dr. McPhee." Nat gave him a small smile and pat on the arm. He sighed again before answering the call and facing their boss.

Nat winced as she could hear the museum director yelling from the other end, Larry holding the phone away from his ear while trying to apologise.

"Listen, I promise I'll figure out what happened-" His words trailed off as they approached their apartment, where loud music could be heard from inside. "Look, I'm sorry, Dr. McPhee, I gotta go." With that Larry hung up. He and Nat exchanged a glance before heading inside...

It was total chaos in there, almost as bad as the show tonight. The apartment was full of teenagers all dancing to electronic music being played by none other than Nick. They had just walked in on a high school party taking place in their living room.

Food and cups littered the floor, and everyone was shouting while trying to talk over the music. They pushed their way through the crowd towards where Nick had set up his DJ equipment.

"Hey!" shouted Larry. Nick froze when he saw them. "Nicky! Nicky!" Larry pulled the plug for the speakers, abruptly cutting off the music, and Nat turned on the lights.

"Hey!" protested the teenagers.

"Dad, what are you doing?" Nicky cried.

"What are you doing?" Larry shot back. "It's three a.m. Party's over. Everybody out!"

Slowly, the kids began to file out the door. A couple of girls came over to Nick.

"See you tomorrow night?" one asked him.

"Probably not," said Larry.

"Probably," Nick answered, giving her a smile.

"Definitely not," said Larry. When at last, everyone was gone, he turned to his son. "Nicolas Daley, you're in so much trouble."

"I know," sighed Nick.

Half an hour later, they had cleaned up a lot of the apartment between the three of them.

Larry was down on his knees vacuuming chips and popcorn out from under the couch. "Hey Honey, do we have a flashlight somewhere?" he asked. Nat paused from wiping spilled soda off the counter - it looked like someone had taken the bottle and dumped it onto the counter - and opened one of the kitchen drawers, handing him his own Glow-in-the-Dark Flashlight.

"Really?"

She shrugged. He took it anyway.

"I didn't really know you'd be coming home early," Nick said in his own defence.

"Yeah that's pretty obvious," said Larry, getting to his feet, an irritated edge to his voice. As if what had gone on at the museum tonight hadn't been enough. "I mean, what makes you think this is okay?"

"When I'm not at Mom's you leave me alone, like, every night," argued Nick.

"Look, you can't be doing this right now, okay. You've got finals, your NYU application is due in what, two weeks?"

"Oh I'm not gonna get into NYU," Nick stated knowingly.

"You don't know that."

"No, I do."

"You don't know that."

"I do, very much know that, in the sense that I don't intend to apply."

There was a pause before Larry spoke again. "What?"

"I don't think it's the place for me right now, Dad."

"Okay, alright that's fine, you want to spread your wings a little, go to school somewhere else. I totally support that all you've got to do is tell me. So what's the list?"

"Uh, well, it's a pretty short list..."

"That's okay, I like that, it means focus."

"Larry, I don't think that's quite what he means," piped up Nat. She always felt a little awkward during these conversations, not really feeling in the position to have an opinion. After all, Nick wasn't her son, but she still wanted to be supportive to him.

"Thank you, Nat," said Nick before turning back to his dad. "Imma hit you with a super short list man cause there's nothing on it."

Now it clicked. "What?"

"Dad," said Nick, rising to his feet. Larry looked a little taken aback. "I want to take a year off. I want to do exactly what you just said and spread my wings a little."

"You want to spread your wings that's great but you can't spread your wings and fly to nowhere."

"That's very poetic but plans change-"

"No they don't-"

"Yeah they do..."

"No, plans don't change-"

"They do, change," Nat mumbled.

"I know, it's disorienting at first-" Nick continued.

"No, plans don't change unless you talk to the person who's financing the plan who, last I checked, was your mother and I."

There was a somewhat tense silence. Nat broke it. "Alright boys, I don't know about you but I'm exhausted so I'm calling it a night. Let's continue this tomorrow, okay?" She took their mutual silence as agreement, that and she was too tired to care if they disagreed. "Good night."

"Night." She and Larry shared a quick kiss and she headed off to bed, leaving father and son.

As soon as the bedroom door shut behind her, Nick crept over to make sure it was closed so she couldn't hear. Then he hurried back over to his dad. "Did you ask her?!" he hissed.

Larry sighed. "No, I didn't."

Nick gawked. "What, Dad, you've been planning this for weeks, months even! Okay, well maybe not that long but you know what I mean! Come on, man!"

"Yeah, I know, but-" His words trailed off and he sighed again. "Tonight didn't go as planned, so I didn't get the chance. Something's up with the guys at the museum, and I've got to figure out what."

"Okay but you'd better ask soon, I mean you've been together for five years. She'll start to wonder. And then you'll have lost your chance."

Larry nodded, knowing he was right. "Hey, don't change the subject," he said, pointing a finger accusingly at his son.

"You know, good idea, Nat. She's right, let's call it a night-" Nick began to slip away.

"Hey, not so fast young man."

"Dad, we could continue to sit here and have this conversation about plans, but for now, let's just call it a night. Let's not even clean up, right, lets come back tomorrow, reboot the whole energy, and we'll kill it, man! Team Daley, right, not tonight, tomorrow!"

"Hey, Team Daley?"

"Yeah?"

"Stop talking."

"Okay."

"You're going to clean up, I'm going to go to bed, and we'll finish this conversation tomorrow. No exceptions." And with that, he left Nick alone in the dirty kitchen with a mess to face.

Nat was already in her pajamas, flipping through one of her work notebooks.

"How'd it go?" she asked him.

"He's on clean up duty, only fair," he answered, removing his tie. "Do you think I was too harsh?"

"Well, not about the whole party thing, but maybe about the whole college thing."

"Yeah but, he's changing everything on me. I mean, where did this all come from anyway?"

"I know. He's growing up but he's also still a kid, let him live a little. He's still got lots of time to decide."

"Yeah but if you give them too much time, they'll never decide. Like me."

"Well I'd say you turned out alright."

"Yeah maybe, but I want him to do better than that, better than just 'alright'." He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. "This was the last thing I needed tonight." He sighed and buried his face in his hands.

"I know," she said, putting a comforting arm around him. "Well, they've got to start somewhere, right?"

It's been forever and I'm so sorry! I hope this chapter made up for the long wait :) Thank you so much for reading! Hope you enjoyed (as always!)