Epilogue
A/N: Yup, this is the end guys! :)
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"They should make a movie out of how you guys got together," Whitney said, looking very smug as she picked at her plate.
We were at a rather upscale brunch restaurant in Chelsea, so I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her smugness. Still I stuck my tongue out at her comment.
"But it would be really cringeworthy, especially whenever Kayla's character shows up on screen," Michael said, giving me a smirk as he popped a fry in his mouth.
I glared at him.
"Can you give me a minute to enjoy this before you guys make me want to cringe?" I crossed my arms over my chest. "And what happened to your healthy eating phase, Michael? First the Greasy Chicken and now this?"
He only continued to smile at me unflinchingly. "Eh, I still look good and you know it. Whatever, Kayla. You're dating Nick Casbarian now. You have a video on Youtube that's gotten over a million views. Yesterday, about ten girls flocked to you after class to ask you what's it's actually like to kiss Nick. Honey, what is there to cringe about?"
I actually cringed about this. Yesterday between my social psych class and my lunch break, I was basically attacked by a horde of girls, all of them squeaking excitedly in my face and asking about what it was like to date Nick. I suddenly understood what it felt like to have a posse.
It had been exactly a week since Nick and I had gone to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.
I still couldn't believe it. Just thinking about it all made me positively giddy. Still.
"Anyways," Whitney said, jabbing her forkful of salad in my direction. "I'm glad you two got it together before I had to smack anyone."
I pursed my lips. "We weren't that ridiculous," I muttered defensively.
This promptly solicited two very pointed and 'are you kidding me?' looks from my friends, and I raised my hands in defeat.
"Okay, okay, fine," I admitted, backing away before any of them could give me a good earful. "But I mean, it all worked out in the end, didn't it?"
"Only with a bit of pushing and prodding," Michael muttered.
I shot him another glare. I still hadn't quite forgiven him for spilling the beans on me about that horrifyingly embarrassing moment at Bernadine's, even though I knew he had done it with good intentions. But even so, I doubted that I was ever going to set foot in that restaurant again.
Looking at Whitney and Michael now, I suddenly thought about everything they had done for me over the past few months. From trying their best to comfort me at Bar Nine when I was a sobbing mess to lashing out furiously at Jake in my defense to obnoxiously offering unsolicited suggestions on my relationship with Nick, they were there through it all.
Unable to help it, my face split into a wide grin.
Whitney narrowed her eyes suspiciously at me. "What are you so happy about?"
Before I had a chance to answer, Michael quipped. "She's probably thinking about sleeping with Nick every night."
My jaw dropped as I stared at him. Michael only grinned back as I flushed crimson. Whitney was giving me a knowing smile. I bunched my hands in the napkin on my lap hissed, "That's not what I was thinking about!"
"Don't lie," Whitney said immediately. "You haven't been home four of the last seven nights."
Okay, that was technically true, but I still felt the need to defend my self.
"That's...not the, well I...I mean...Ugh! It's not what you guys are thinking," I said, fuming and crossing my arms over my chest.
They smirked at me in a manner very unfitting of the classy upscaleness of the restaurant that we were in. I could only roll my eyes. Some things never changed.
"Kayla?"
I turned around. A girl in a white coat had was walking towards me, probably on her way back from the bathroom.
For a split second, I was afraid she was going to be one of those girls who recognized me from the YouTube video and wanted to ask me what brand of shampoo Nick used, but then I realized that she looked vaguely familiar.
"Hey," she said with a smile that was a bit uncertain as she approached our table. "I'm Allison. I don't know if you remember me or not."
My eyes widened. It was Jake's girlfriend. I was more surprised at my inability to immediately recognize who she was than anything else. Granted, I hadn't really interacted with her since we met one another a few months back, but half a year ago, there was no way I could even lose her in a crowded room.
But it had been a while since I thought about her. Her or Jake.
I half thought Jake would pop up behind her and craned my neck a little to look over her shoulder.
"He's not here," Allison said, as if reading my mind.
I leaned back again, feeling a bit embarrassed. "Oh, sorry, I just thought…
"We broke up."
I stared at her in shock. "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry!" I said instinctively. I felt no sense of vindictive joy in all of this. Instead, I just felt rather...detached.
Allison shrugged nonchalantly. "Eh. I'm better off anyways," she said with a quirk of her mouth. "Jake was always going on and on about how much Nick Casbarian's show was overrated and how he wasn't as cool as everyone thought he was. It was getting really obsessive. It wasn't until I saw that YouTube video of you guys at the Knicks game that I put two and two together, really," she said. Then she rolled her eyes at herself. "Slow on the uptake, I know. But go you, Nick's a catch."
I smiled at her words. Yeah, he really was, I thought.
My instinct was to say something along the lines of, "you're so much better off without Jake," or, "I'm so sorry, that sounds awful," but I stopped before those words came out of my mouth. Instead, I thought for a moment, and then told her, "You know, I met Nick almost right after Jake and I broke up, so…
Allison looked at me blankly for a moment, then her mouth curled in a knowing smile. "Well, here's hoping for me then," she said, laughing.
After she left our table, I looked towards my best friends.
Whitney shrugged. "That sounds just like him," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Oh, Jake. I never liked him."
"Yeah, neither of us ever really knew what you saw in him," Michael said.
I shrugged. It seemed like ages ago that I had cried in a bar over my ex-boyfriend to my two best friends. I had known even then that neither of them liked him. They had never been ones to beat around the bush.
"Well, does Nick meet your approval?" I asked, smiling at them.
Michael raised an eyebrow as he surveyed me with a very solemn look.
"Well, as I always say, single friends are the best friends," he said, nodding at me seriously. "But he'll do."
I bit back a grin at his words. Some things really never changed.
That Friday night, as I waited for Nick to wrap up a take for the scene he was filming with his costars on College, J.C. suddenly came to stand beside me.
"Hey," she said, stepping forward to watch the scene that Nick was filming with Katrina Shields.
I turned to look at her. "Hi," I said, a bit hesitantly. I still didn't really know how to act around J.C. I hadn't talked to her since we were at the Greasy Chicken together.
To my surprise, she was smiling at me.
"You know, Nick sings horribly," she said.
I blinked at her. "Huh?" I managed to get out, wondering what in the world she was talking about.
"Horribly," she said, with a roll of her eyes. "It's awful. It never used to be too much of a problem, but over the past week, he's been singing all the time...in the shower, taking out the trash, while cooking…I blame it all on you."
I bit my lip, feeling suddenly embarrassed and a bit light headed at this revelation. "I'll get him a voice coach," I muttered.
J.C. laughed. Then she turned solemn again. "I'd still kick your butt if you break his heart again," she warned me dangerously before walking off to talk to one of the producers.
I was still staring at her retreating back, frozen in a state of shock by her sudden changes in demeanor, when Nick came up to me.
"Hey," he said, slipping his arm around my waist and pressing his lips to my temple. I could hear the smile in his voice, even though I was facing away from him. "Thanks for waiting. What's going on?"
I turned towards him as he slipped both arms around me now and tugged me closer. Even through all our layers of coats and sweaters, I still shivered at his touch.
"Oh, just your roommate threatening to beat me up, same old same old," I said with a shrug.
Nick raised an eyebrow. And then he smiled at me. "Oh, J.C. likes you. I don't know where you're getting the notion that you need to feel intimidated by her."
"Oh?" I asked. "You want to meet my three older brothers then?"
Nick grinned at me. "They already like me, remember?"
I narrowed my eyes at him. "I'll tell them to be harder on you next time you come over," I told him adamantly.
He was still grinning at me. Instead of saying anything, he leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the mouth.
I drew back quickly, but couldn't help but smile. "We're in public," I told him, giving him a light shove on the chest. I looked around, half expecting fan girls to pop out from behind the bushes and demand to know just how many times a day he kissed me. Luckily, there was no one here, only the crew disassembling equipment for the filming setup, and they paid us no attention.
"Alright, alright," Nick said, drawing back. "I'll save all the inappropriateness for tonight then."
Even in the cold, I could feel my cheeks heat up. "Who said there was going to be any inappropriateness tonight?" I asked.
We both started to walk towards the subway station.
Nick turned to grin at me, but I refused to look at him. "Well, fine. What are you doing tonight?" he asked.
I shrugged, still looking resolutely ahead. "I don't know," I muttered. "Homework."
"We're on Christmas break," he said immediately.
"I have to pack to go back to my parents' place in a few days then," I said, trying not to smile.
"They're close by and half of your stuff is home anyways," he replied.
"I want to watch a movie."
"You can watch it at my place."
I turned away, just so he wouldn't see me smiling.
"I have to do laundry tonight," I said.
Nick turned to me, and out of the corners of my eyes, I could see that he had raised his eyebrows. "I don't think you really need clothes that much tonight."
I turned towards him, my mouth open in shock and mortification. I stamped my feet on the ground. "Nick Casbarian! You're shameless!"
He was undeterred. Instead, he reached over and put his arm around me. Grinning, he said, "And you, Kayla Williams, are coming home with me."
I didn't argue with that.
….
…..
A/N: Thanks for reading this story guys! Hope you had as much fun reading about Nick and Kayla as I had writing about them. I really wanted to write a funny, light hearted story. I loved Kayla as a heroine, even though she was very, very flawed (but then again, who isn't? :))
If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, I'd love to hear them!
And I'm currently working on my next story-Lunch atop a Skyscraper-so that should be posted soon! It's also going to take place in New York :)