"Seriously? He knows about all of your boyfriends?"

I chuckled at the look on Catherine's face as I placed two six pack boxes of beer into the fridge. Who knew this barbeque would involve so much alcohol? Well, I guess Nick's coworkers did since they were the ones who bought the vast majority of it.

I opened a bottle of white wine that I had pulled out of the fridge and passed it to her saying, "Worse. He even knows about my one-night stands. Hell… He was usually my first call after most of them."

"He…? Really?" She asked in an astonished voice.

I couldn't help but laugh at her stunned reaction. It never seemed odd to me to call Nick and talk about my night because he never stopped me or made me feel weird about doing it. That's what made her astonishment so funny to me. If it didn't bother Nicky to hear those details, then it shouldn't be weird to anyone else, right? Right?

"No, seriously, Nicco… He wasn't, was he?" Catherine asked in a more stern, almost motherly tone.

"I swear to you that he was," I reiterated with a chuckle.

"I can't believe it!"

"You can't believe what?" Nick asked as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled my back against his chest.

Catherine didn't look like she was going to answer, so I confidently replied, "She can't believe that we know everything about each other's romantic pasts. You know, like every person that we've been with intimately."

"Oh… yeah. That's totally true, Cath. Nicco and I have never had any secrets between us," Nick confirmed as he hugged me even tighter into his chest.

Catherine watched us with a suspicious look in her eye as she asked, "So? That means you know about…? Uhh…"

"Yes, I know about him and Kristy," I answered when she trailed off.

I felt Nick's laughter before I heard it. "She called me every hour on the hour for nearly forty-eight hours straight after she heard I was a suspect in her death."

I turned in his arms so I could go up on my tip toes to kiss him. "What can I say? I was worried about you."

"Sure, you were. That's why one of those calls came from TJ's bed, huh?"

I felt my eyes go wide, but Nicky gave me a deep kiss before I could speak. He kept his forehead resting on my forehead while he quietly said, "Baby Love, I was just teasing you. Please don't look so worried."

"Really? You ain't mad?" I whispered around a lump forming in my throat.

"I ain't mad," he confirmed before he kissed me again. "But I might be ready to pitch a fit if you insist on spending all of your time here in the kitchen."

That made me laugh as I playfully punched him. "Well, if you want to drink warm beer then I'll stop finding rom in the fridge for the six packs."

His eyes went wide, but it was completely in a teasing way. "Perish the thought!" He retrieved a beer from the fridge then said, "Rick and Greg said the food should be finished soon, so…"

"We'll follow you out," Catherine cut in. She held up her empty wine glass and added, "After we get our refills."

She watched him leave the room before she turned to me and asked, "You say you know have any secrets between you two, but he doesn't know, does he?"

I stared at her for a second then asked, "Doesn't know what?"

She just raised an eyebrow and then what she was trying to get me to understand hit me. My cheeks turned red as I answered meekly, "No, he doesn't. Hell, I wasn't even consciously aware of it when it happened. Since he didn't know about my feelings for him back then, I didn't think it would be fair to put than on him because he… he couldn't have known that sleeping with a woman and being a suspect in her murder would make me do something stupid like sleeping with his high school rival."

"Nicco? Nicco?"

I just barely heard someone calling out my name when I felt them gently shake my shoulder. That finally got me to look up from the cup of tea I was stirring absentmindedly on the kitchen island.

"Nicco? Are you okay?"

I turned to look at Catherine standing beside me and tried to give her a smile as I replied, "Oh hey, Catherine. Sorry, I must have spaced out there for a second. Did…? Did you need to talk to me about….? About…?"

"No," she said as she lifted her hands to show me the two bags of groceries that she was holding. "Your dad let me in, but he said you would know better than him where all of this should go."

I scowled at her until I looked inside one of the bags. No, I'm not proud of the gasp that passed over my lips or the shocked expression on my face when I got a look at what she had brought us. "Groceries? Catherine, you really didn't have to do that."

"I didn't. It was Greg's idea and the whole team pitched in. I had an errand to run, so I offered to do the delivery on my way."

"That is so sweet of all of you. Really, I can't thank you enough."

She fell into step beside me to hold onto the bags while I placed their contents in the fridge and cupboards. I could feel Catherine watching me with a keen eye, so I wasn't surprised when I heard her ask, "Do you mind me asking what had you so distracted when I first came in here?"

"Of course, you can. I was actually thinking about the last time we were in this room together."

"Oh? Really?"

Even though I had my back turned to her, I could see the confused look on her face in my mind's eye that perfectly matched her tone. I finished placing some of the perishables into the fridge before I turned around and answered, "Really. I had actually started thinking about telling him about TJ and why that really happened. But I kept putting it off and waiting for a 'better time'. You know, for everything in our lives and our schedules to settle down? Settle down… That sounds so stupid now. But… that's what I was thinking about. How it never seems to be a good time but there always seems to be an unending number of excuses to put it off."

"That's true on both counts, but you shouldn't be too hard on yourself. You've been through a lot these last few months. No one could fault you for not wanting to add that conversation to your plate while you were moving and dealing with school and the internship… not to mention everything to do with your assault."

"Thanks. But… Again, those are just excuses because there never seems to be a good time. Look at us now. I… I might never get a chance to tell him the truth and…"

"You'll get a chance to tell him," Catherine interrupted with a very firm tone. "We ARE going to find him and you ARE going to get a chance to tell him everything."

I stared at her for a second because she sounded so sure and there was something different about the conviction I heard in her voice. "I know, Catherine… I know you guys are the best people for this job, but…? But what…? What if…?"

She squeezed my arm as we walked towards the front door to cut my thoughts off. "Have faith, Nicco."

I smiled and gave her a hug replying, "All I can promise is that I'll try."

By the time I returned to the kitchen after walking Catherine out to continue putting away the groceries, Mom was standing by them. When she heard me enter the room, she looked up and asked, "You went grocery shopping?"

Her tone sounded more shocked than angry, so I continued with the task at hand while I answered, "No, Catherine came by with them. The team wanted to make sure we have everything we might need right now."

"Catherine…? The team…? But…?"

"Mom," I interrupted as I placed my hand on her shoulder. "The team is like family to each other, so they're just looking out for us."

"But they… and…"

"Mom, it's done. And I'm more than certain it didn't impede either investigation in anyway."

That last comment earned me a thoroughly unimpressed look. "I wasn't implying that at all, Nicolette. I just meant…"

"I know… I know what you meant. I was just trying to be reassuring and… I didn't mean to offend you."

Great. I just can NOT win. I thought to myself as I let out a heavy sigh. I hadn't stopped with my chore, so I had my back to my mom by this time. That meant that I could let my face drop into a sad scowl as I reprimanded myself.

It also meant that I didn't see my mom moving to stand behind me and I totally jumped when I felt her wrapped her arms around my waist. After a moment of pause, I finally settled in my place when she hugged me even tighter into her chest.

"Nicco… Baby… I really don't want to fight with you."

I hugged her arms that were still around my waist and answered, "I don't either, Mom." I then turned to face her and hugged her properly. "Plus, we haven't been eating or sleeping properly, so that doesn't help. Why don't I whip us up something to eat and we can just forget about where the groceries came from?"

"Nicco, you don't…"

"No fighting means no arguing too, Mom." Dad had joined us in the kitchen by this time. I turned Mom around and gently pushed her towards him. "Go… Sit and try to relax. Dinner won't take long."

Dad wrapped an arm around mom's shoulders to stern her towards the den. As they walked out together, he gave me a watery smile and said, "Thank you, Kitten."

DINNER TOOK ME LONGER THAN I had anticipated. That was mostly because I had a bit of a breakdown after Mom and Dad left the room. It hurt that pretty much nothing had changed between my mom and me. It took no effort at all for a simple conversation between the two of us to devolve into a shouting match. I'm not sure that either of us even knew what our arguments were about most of the time. But… Argue we did… Like it was an Olympic sport.

The worst part was that both of us HAD to be right. With Dad and Nicky, they could recognize when I was being stubborn and doing my damnedest not to be 'wrong', so they would diffuse the situation. I'm sure that if I couldn't convince Mom to let me cook dinner alone that Dad would have had to jump in to intervene before things got too heated and ugly.

Thankfully Dad was able to find a movie for us to watch while we ate, so our meal passed by with a peaceful silence. Mom even cleared our plates without a word about how much food I left on mine. When she came back into the den, she seamlessly slipped onto the couch and gently guided me down so that my head was resting in her lap. I heard her and dad let out a soft sigh as mom settled against dad's side. It had been a really long time since the three of us had settled in for a movie night like this. I'm pretty sure I hadn't hit puberty yet and after the fight we had last summer, I was sure that it was never going to happen again.

Mom was idly petting my hair down the length of my arm while we watched the movie. I could feel my eyelids getting heavier and heavier by the second. Actually, I was well on my way to falling asleep, so I'm not sure if I was dreaming or if my really did quietly say, "Than you for making dinner, Baby Nicco."