Too Fast For Love

Chapter 17: Sure Know Something

Kat's POV

I kept noticing Nikki constantly looking over to me, looking like he wanted to walk over here and say something to me, but never did. I couldn't help but every so often glance over at him. He was just so goddamn good looking, but even better than before with age.

"You good, Kat" Jake said leaning down to me and talking into my ear since Guns was still playing, but pretty much finishing up.

"Yeah, I'm good" I said flashing him a somewhat fake smile and nodding my head. Jake has always been able to read me really well so I knew the moment I said those words, he didn't believe me one bit. He then glanced over at Nikki who was looking at me when I wasn't looking.

"You know, you should just talk to him. It couldn't hurt, could it" he said. I looked at Jake. Maybe it wasn't a bad idea? But maybe then again it was. Nikki and I ended on bad terms, and in all honesty, we didn't officially break up, rather than just going our separate ways.

"Fine...I will later" I replied.

~

After the event at the record store was long over and it was time to close, I decided that it'd be nice to have a bonfire/barbecue out on the beach where there was a fire pit. It was roughly about 9:30pm when everyone showed up. Of course some groupies had came for the boys of GNR but also friends of the band that consisted of band members from two other bands.

"Hey stranger" a person said coming up and picking me up from behind. It was Tommy. I was at the grill flipping burgers and taking a swig of my Löwenbräu. He then sat me down back to the ground and I turned around.

"Tommy!!" I yelled giving him a big hug. It seemed as if he towered over me more than he ever has before. Maybe I was shrinking.

"How have you been, shortie" he said ruffling my hair. I huffed as I fixed my now messy hair.

"I've been pretty good. What about you? It seems like I haven't seen you in forever" I said looking up at him.

"Good good. I know. Five years already? Time really fucking flies. I miss you. We all miss you."

"Same Tommy, same" I said looking down at the bottle in my hands.

"Well hey, we're all here now" Tommy said looking over towards Mick, Vince and Nikki who were all talking amongst each other. I looked over over at them as well. That's when Nikki's eyes met mine. He then shot me a smirk, so I smiled back. I could feel my cheeks start to get warm.

"You know, you should talk to him" Tommy finished saying putting his hand on my shoulder. "I'll take over" he said gesturing over to the grill.

"I mean I guess" I said scratching my head and looking behind me again to see that Nikki was starting to make his way over to me. Shit shit shit shit shit. My heart felt like it was pouring in my throat.

"You'll be fine" Tommy said leaning over closer to my ear. I nodded my head in agreement.

Nikki met me halfway from where he was from and me, vice versa.

"Hey" he said putting one of his hands in his pocket and taking a sip from his beer in the other.

"Hi Nikki" I said looking down at the ground making as little eye contact with him. I was too afraid to look at him because the last time I spoke to him, it was that night five years ago.

"How have you been" he asked tilting his head and lifting my head up with his hands. Our eyes locked and he smiled.

"I-I've been good. I just-I've been managing my record store Divine Eternity Records for the past few years now."

"That's awesome Kat. I'm so happy for you" he replied.

"Yeah...thanks. What about you? How's life?"

"It's going. We're going to start touring again in a few months. June to be exact" he said with a smile. His smile was just so damn cute. I know that whenever he was talking about music, he was always genuinely happy. He loves what he does.

"So what's with you and Jake? You too still going out" he questioned taking another swig of his beer. So was I.

"Wait what" I responded as I spit my beer in shock at the words that just came out of my mouth.

"No. Why would you think that" I questioned. "We tried it out after uh- a few years back but it didn't seem right" I said nervously, looking around me trying to not make eye contact.

"Oh I see" he says kind of chuckling. "You two are just awfully close to each other...like earlier today."

"No, we are just friends. He's more like a brother to me" I say as Jake walks up.

"Damn, you hear that, bud. You're like a brother" Nikki said patting Jake's shoulder in a comfortably way.

"Damn, by who" Jake said putting his arm around around him.

"By little Kitty Kat right here" he said taking another swig. I shot Nikki and death glare jokingly and stuck out my tongue.

"Ah c'mon Kat, you should keep that mouth shut all the way. There's too many horn dogs around here" Jake said covering my mouth.

"And now I can see why" Nikki said looking and talking to me. He was right. Jake was very much more protective of me than anything. Maybe that was a good thing?

A few more hours pass by and music is still blasting, people are talking and laughing and quite a few were already blacked out from drinking. I grabbed a towel from my bag that I brought and took myself closer to the water and sat down. I lit a joint and stared off into the blackened sea.

"Mind if I join ya" a voice asks. I turned around to see Nikki. I nodded my head and he took a seat next to me.

"Seems like forever that I haven't actually taken the time to just stop everything I'm doing and breathe" he started to say. "This right here is perfect" he finished saying pointing out to the waves and the cool night breeze.

"Yeah. This is my favorite part about this place. I can forget about all my problems and worries for a bit" I said. Then there was a short pause between the two of us.

"I hope that there aren't any hard feelings between us. I know things didn't end up the way the should have, but we were both young and dumb. Mostly me. I was too busy living in the moment and forgot to cherish what mattered the most" he started to say. "And that night at the bar when you left me, I had no clue what to say. Vince told me later on that night when I started to sober up what you saw. And I just wanted to let you know that none of what you saw was what happened. I will admit that I was shooting up in the bathroom with one of the guys. The girl that followed behind me just happened to end up behind me at the wrong time. I get why you would of thought so low and poorly of me, but I don't blame you. I just want to let you know that I am genuinely sorry and hope that we can move past it and be friends."

Friends? FRIENDS?! That's the last thing I wanted to hear come out of his mouth. I didn't want to be his friend. I wanted to be more than friends. I wanted to go back to how things used to be. But he was right. We were both just young and dumb. For gods sake, I almost married the man. Clearly anyone in the right mindset wouldn't of tried to get hitched with a guy from a band that you barely met just less than a year ago, let alone getting knocked up too.

"Yeah. I think we can work something out" I said lying through my teeth. Luckily it was dark out so he couldn't fully make out what my face said.

"Well food then. I'm glad. I can't lose you again" he said grabbing ahold of my hand that was placed on the ground.

I swear this man had a way with his words. I just wish he meant it in the way I wanted to hear it.

⛓ Authors Note ⛓
Hi guys!! I'm so sorry about the late update, but I recently started a brand new job and I've been feeling like a zombie for the past four days 😭😭
Hopefully y'all are enjoying it. I wanted to try to find a way to start fresh in order to get more into detail about certain things rather than just jam-packing everything into a small timeframe.
Please continue to like and vote on this story!! 🖤 And don't be afraid to follow me on here if you aren't already!! Thanks so much 💋