"It's funny, you know?"

His voice was so very clear in the moment, Nick could have sworn he was besides him.

The distinctive sound of the refrigerator door being opened is heard in the kitchen were only the two of them were standing.

Kevin nods. "That I do."

Kevin's voice continued ringing in his ears as Nick shook his head. He looked at the closed door for only another second before turning around and opening one of the cupboards. He got out a bag of Doritos and opened it. As he munched on a handful of Doritos, he opened the can of Coke and took a long sip.

"That's not really a healthy breakfast."

Nick doesn't say anything.

Blinking slowly, Nick came back to reality, realizing he had been staring into space. Looking down at the bag of Doritos he still had in hand, he stood up and walked out of the kitchen. In his way out, he threw the can and bag onto the garbage. Suddenly, he wasn't hungry anymore.

Nick looked around the room. There had to be something to done in his house. When his eyes laid on the TV and the already hooked up Playstation, Nick couldn't help but smile. He walked over there, taking the controller in his hands and sitting down in front of the TV. The couch wasn't that far away, but there was something childish about sitting on the floor to play Nintendo.

Nick feels a pair of arms sliding around his waits and before he can say anything, a mustache tickles him on his ear as a deep voice mutters softly. "You're going to hurt your eyes."

"I love you too and that's why I worry."

Nick threw the controller down. It crashed -- loudly -- against the carpet. Nick didn't know if it had broken and he sure as hell didn't care. What good could a game do if he wasn't going to pay attention to it?

Nick's eyes roamed the room once again. On the corner of the living room, an ivory white baby piano stood. It hadn't even been in his place six months.

Nick walks over to his front porch. His gym bag slides down his arm as the blond tries to open the door with his keys. He's just arriving from going over to Brian's for a ball game. He finally succeeds and enters his house.

Kevin grins from ear to ear. "The guys won't suspect. I promise." He leans over, kissing Nick.

He had thought about getting rid of it, but he just couldn't make himself do it. It had barely been six months since it got there and a little over a week since the last time it was played. He didn't play the piano. He didn't know how. He didn't play the piano and the only person who did was no longer there.

Nick shook his head. "Shit," he muttered under his breath. It was a stupid piano. It was only a piece of wood and ivory keys. Continuing shaking his head, Nick made his way up the stairs, taking the steps three at a time.

He made his way over to his bedroom, opening the door loudly. Standing in the middle of the room, he looked around. There had to be something to be done so he could take his mind of things he had promised himself not to think about. Decisions were always made and consequences could be seen. He couldn't morn over them. He couldn't -- shouldn't -- regret them. If he had done something, then it was because at that point, for him, it was the best way to go. Even if now it didn't seem like it.

When his eyes fell on the master bed, the dark blue comforter covering matching blue sheets, Nick couldn't help but gulp down the knot that seemed to have formed in his throat.

Feeling arms going around his waist, Nick snuggles closer into Kevin's chest. He barely turns around, placing his head in the crock of Kevin's neck. Kevin's husky scent taking over his nostrils, Nick can't help but smile in the sweet abyss of his subconscious -- the place between asleep and awake.

Kevin kisses the top of Nick's head then lays his cheek against the golden locks of his love. "Happy Anniversary," Kevin mutters softly, his eyes closing slowly.

Nick nods, biting his lower lip. "I know. I love you too baby." He places his arms around Kevin's waist and lays his head on Kevin's chest. "I love you so much."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck." Nick muttered under his breath, suddenly feeling claustrophobic in his own bedroom. It was a bed. It was a stupid bed, the bed he'd been sleeping in for the past two years, ever since he got the house. It was a bed and that very same bed was making his lungs contract in his chest as air left them.

His eyes moved, landing on the nightstand on the left side of the bed. It wasn't Nick's. Nick always liked sleeping on the right. He always believed it had something to do with his ever-lasting technique of always heading right in any type of game. Lying on the matching hand craved wood the nightstand was made of was a slightly thick book. It, it read on the cover with bright gold letters. Underneath the name of the author was visibly: Stephen King.

Nick picked it up. It wasn't his that was obvious, even though Nick had been planning on reading it after he was done with it. The reading marker was a little over the middle. Bringing it closer, turning it around so he could read the summary in the back of the same, something fell from it.

Looking down at the floor, it was a picture that was looking back at him.

Kevin takes one of the recently developed pictures in his hands from the envelope. He looks at it, a smile on his lips and his eyes shinning brightly. Picking up the recently purchased silver frame, he opens it and proceeds to place the picture inside the frame.

Not answering Nick's question, Kevin continues his task. He takes the picture out of the frame and, picking up the book laying on the nightstand of his side of the bed, he places it inside. He had just started the book, so it'd be at least five or so months before he finishes it. Turning around, he looks at Nick. "If I can't have it on the living room, then at least I'll have it with me at all times, right?"

Nick started biting his lower lip. Kevin hadn't taken the picture from the book since that day, looking at it whenever he continued reading the book. He must have forgotten it in the hassle. Nick started biting his lower lip even harder and for a moment he feared he might draw blood from it. Picking up the picture, he placed it back in between the pages of the book and was about to leave the room when something caught his eye.

His sketchbook.

Whenever Nick was too worried or too tense to be able to focus on anything at all, his sketchbook was able to give him the calm and center him back in his axis. Believe this time would be no different, Nick walked over to the dresser and picked up the book from there.

He run his way down the stairs, knowing that laying on the couch and the light entering the window through the half opened curtains would be what he needed to get his bearings together.

Letting himself fall down unceremoniously on the couch, Nick opened the sketchbook and started going through the pages, trying to find the next blank one.

The first couple of drawing were his classical sketches: the ocean, a couple of trees, Brian and AJ playing ball, his dogs. However, as the pages continued, meaningless lines became more focused and less and less abstract. The coal lines started taking form and shaping an outline he could recognize with his eyes closed.

Getting to the last drawings, it was always Kevin. One of those drawings was Kevin sleeping on the bed and Nick could remember the night he had drawn that. Nick had woken up in the middle of the night, something totally unusual for him. Turning around, he had seen Kevin spooning him, a soft smile on his lips. Nick couldn't remember ever seeing Kevin smiling on his sleep in the eight years he knew the older man. In a sudden rush of spontaneity, he untangled himself from Kevin's grasp without waking him up and retrieved his sketchbook from the dresser. He sat down by the wall, looking at Kevin and drawing his sleeping frame.

Another one was of Kevin making breakfast, grinning madly at the blond. Kevin had been teasing him about doing anything in his power to refuse cooking lessons. In the next one Kevin was playing the piano, writing a new ballad he had later told Nick it had been composed for him. Kevin's hands were going through the ivory keys like kisses over silk and Nick hadn't been able to help himself and not feel enchanted by that man.

Nick started feeling his frustration rising inside his chest. He had been looking for something to take his mind of the only thought -- scene -- that kept running through.

"ARGH!!!" He screamed, frustration and anger in his voice and face. Standing up of the couch in one single motion, he threw the sketchbook, crossing the dinning room and crashing against the wall on the other side of the room. It fell down on the floor, opening on it own on one of the last drawings. It was, as suspected, of Kevin. He was sitting on the bed, a book on his hands, reading it completely concentrated, oblivious to his boyfriend sitting by the threshold, drawing him.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Nick started saying, pacing around the room, feeling like a caged animal in his very own house. His very own house for crying out loud! It had never changed. It was his house and it had stayed his house for the past year. Sure, Kevin came over more times than not, but it was still his house.

Then how could he explain feeling like an intruder in what was suppose to be his own getaway?

Nick felt restricted and trapped. Every way he look, there was something to remind him of what had been. To mock him about his last decision and taunt him, making him doubt his very own security.

So maybe he had been wrong, but at the time he had been so sure... How could something so drastic change in so little time, he didn't know and didn't understand, fearing realizing it had been there all along and he had just been too fucking blind to see it.

He sat on the couch again, suddenly feeling too tired for his legs to hold him up high. He closed his eyes, placing his elbows on his knees and hiding his face in his hands.

He couldn't be wrong.

He couldn't be.

Kevin walks into the living room, where Nick is sitting on the floor playing Nintendo, and smiles at his boyfriend.

Kevin shakes his head. "I know them Nick. We know them, they won't react badly." He sighs. "We've been together over a year and a half. I'm tired of hiding Nick. I'm tired of saying I'm gonna go to the gym when I'm actually coming here." He shakes his head once again. "I'm tired of it all."

Kevin bits his lower lip. There's only one question left. "Is it that we can't tell them or that you don't want to tell them?"

"I know you thought this was it and we were gonna last ages together, we were gonna get married and have 2.5 kids and all that crap, but that's just an illusion. That's just stupid."

Kevin bites his lower lip, a single tear making its way down his cheek. "I love you."

That had happened almost a week ago. Nick parted his hands, his eyes focusing on the floor. It had been a week since it happened and Nick hadn't seen Kevin since. They hadn't talked. The group was on a break, so there was no need for them to see each other -- neither business nor personal.

After Nick's little confession, Kevin had picked up a bunch of his stuff -- stuff that had been placed in Nick's place while their usual coming and going -- and left the house for good. He hadn't even spoken a word to the blond, barely picking up his compositions and business papers. Kevin had been in such a rush, he had even forgotten his book.

And for the past week Nick had been thinking about his words. He knew that at the beginning of the relationship -- that is, if what he and Kevin had could even be called a relationship -- Nick was sure it was only a game. He was young and wanted to do everything that could be done.

When Kevin had leaned over and kissed him, Nick had kissed him back more out of inertia than anything else. When Kevin's lips touched his, Nick responding only seemed... right. Nick knew Kevin would die if Nick refused starting something, so he just went along.

Him initiating physical contact, as kisses and hugs, was only natural. Nick just felt comfortable enough with Kevin not to worry about what the older man would think. He had kissed him and hugged him because it was what he was supposed to do.

When Kevin had said he loved him for the first time, Nick had answer because that was the right thing to do. They had kissed and spend the rest of the morning in bed because that was what couples do. Nick hadn't thought twice about it.

At six months in their relationship, their first time together was only the next step. Both Kevin and Nick had been shy at first, being their first time with a man, but it had all gotten incredible familiar as minutes ticked by. It had been wonderful, Nick had to accept it, but it had also been sex. Being touched the right way, of course would have its physical consequences on him.

But now, with Kevin gone and every little thing in his house reminding Nick of the older man, Nick couldn't help but feel that something was wrong. At some point, something had gone wrong.

Nick was sure he wasn't in love with Kevin. Nick just couldn't be in love with him. He had liked girls for as long as he could remember. He liked everything about girls: soft hair, long legs, taunt stomach and big breast.

He loved girls.

Then why was he feeling like his heart had died the moment Kevin had walked out of his place?

Nick had done an analysis of his feelings and actions towards Kevin far before they broke up and, once again, he had come to the conclusion that he wasn't in love with Kevin.

He couldn't be wrong.

Then why was he missing Kevin? Why was it that whenever he remembered the good time he had spent in Kevin's arms, his heart contracted and he felt like dying? Why was it that he missed the soft sound of the piano and something cooking on the oven?

Why was he missing Kevin?

Nick stood up, walking around the room.

He was right. He had thought a million times about this over the past year and a half and over and over he had come to the same conclusion: it was just a comfortable relationship. It was just good sex.

Nick shook his head again. It didn't feel like a comfortable relationship and good sex anymore.

He felt heart broken.

Nick sat down on the couch again. "It can't," he muttered lowly, barely above a whisper. "I can't be wrong." He just didn't have the chance to be wrong.

"I can't," he repeated, "I can't. Please, please, don't let me be wrong."

He closed his eyes, pressing his hands on top of his head, feeling despair taking over him. After so many nights thinking about it and analyzing everything there was to be analyzed about this, Nick had always ended up in the very same conclusion: he wasn't in love.

Then when exactly did that change? When and how come no one told him so he wouldn't make the worse mistake in his life?

"Oh God," he breathed out, his hands moving to cover his mouth as his eyes lost all focus.

He started shaking his head, not even realizing he was doing it. "No, no, no, no, no, no," Nick kept repeating like a mantra, hoping that'd change something.

Nick closed his eyes shut, his heart racing and contracting in his chest. He could feel his pulse accelerating and his breath shortening. Everything around him was crumbling and he felt more than just dying.

He had been wrong. At some point during the last year and a half, he had fallen in love with Kevin.

Nick stayed like that, his hands covering his mouth and his eyes closed, for what seemed like ages. When he was finally strong enough to open his eyes, he turned around, his eyes landing on the phone by the couch.

With heavy hand and tired soul, he picked the receiver up and proceeded to dial the number he already knew by heart. Something in the back of his mind told him that it'd be pointless, that it wouldn't be picked up, but he knew he had to try -- the last thing he could do was to try.

It rang once, then twice. Three times before his heart started crumbling slowly. Four times and he felt like there couldn't be enough air in the world for him to be able to breath. Five times and his eyes closed, his eyelids too lifeless to stay open anymore.

Nick knew the machine would pick up any second now and, instead of hanging up -- like anyone in his or her right mind would have done -- he stayed on the line. He knew it would sound pathetic for whoever was there to listen, but at the moment he didn't care enough. All he wanted in this very same second was to hear his voice.

True to his suspicions, the machine picked up, and the beep loud in the silent room.

Hi, this is Kevin Richardson. I can't answer right now, but if you leave your name and phone number, I'll make sure to get back to you.

As the other beep could be heard through the line, Nick placed the auricular back in its cradle. Leaning his forehead against the receiver heavily, he closed his eyes, his hands over his head, his fingers intertwined together.

He kept shaking his head, not really believing what had happened. He had fucked things up. He had more than just fuck things up.

"I'm sorry," Nick muttered into the empty room. "I'm so very sorry." He swallowed with difficulty. It was like his throat had closed down, crashing along with his chest, he couldn't breath. "God," he whispered lowly, "I'm so very sorry."

He stayed like that, silent, not moving, for a moment.

Everything had gone wrong.

Nick could feel tears in the back of his eyes. He had made the biggest mistake in his life and now he was paying for that.

"I love you Kevin," Nick stated, even though his voice wasn't above a whisper. "I love you."