The bright afternoon sunlight reflected off my sunglasses as I glanced into the rearview mirror. “So, question for you,” I said, turning my head toward the passenger seat. “As someone who works with pilots… Do you think guys who wear aviator sunglasses but don’t fly planes are douchebags?”
Natalie laughed. “No, Kevin, I don’t think you’re a douchebag.”
I smiled, refocusing on the road in front of me as the stoplight turned green. “Good.” I glanced right, then left, then right again, making sure the intersection was clear before I pulled forward – apparently not fast enough for the Mustang behind me, which honked and revved its engine as it whipped out and around me, leaving my truck in its dust. But I didn’t care; I had just picked up Natalie from the airport, and nothing was going to ruin our two days together.
“You actually look really hot in those aviators,” she added, “like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.”
“Really?” My smile grew. “That’s one of my favorite movies.”
“Mine too!”
“I used to wanna be a fighter pilot ‘cause of that movie,” I told her, pushing the accelerator down to pick up more speed. “I actually thought about joining the Air Force after high school, but I moved to Orlando and got a job at Disney World instead.”
She laughed. “You worked at Disney World? No way!”
“Yup. That’s where I met my wife; we were both cast members there. She played Belle, and I played Aladdin, among other characters.”
“You were Aladdin?!” Natalie gasped.
It was my turn to laugh. “Yeah… Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid, too. And a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.” I loved that I could impress her with the little fun facts about myself that had been common knowledge among BSB fans for years. Apparently, she hadn’t googled me.
“Oh my goodness! You must have made a great Eric; you look just like him! The Little Mermaid is my all-time favorite Disney movie,” she said with a sigh. “You may have wanted to be Maverick, but when I was a little girl, all I wanted was to be Ariel.”
Her enthusiastic response put a smile on my face. “That was the newest Disney movie when I started working at the parks in 1990.” I paused. “How old were you then?”
“Eight,” she replied with a giggle. “Going on nine.”
“Oh, god…” I groaned. “So when I was a cast member, you could have been one of the little girls chasing me around the Magic Kingdom to collect my autograph.” Our ten-year age difference felt more significant when I thought of it like that.
She laughed. “Actually… I might have been! My family went to Disney World over Christmas break the following year. I spent my tenth birthday there.”
“So that would have been, what, ‘91?” I asked, glancing over at her. She nodded. “I wouldn’t have been working there then. That was just a few months after my dad died; I had moved back to Kentucky to be with my family.”
“Oh… I’m sorry,” she said softly, her voice taking on a serious tone. “That must have been awful.”
I nodded. “Yeah… he’s been gone for over twenty years now… longer than I had him in my life.” The realization raised a lump in my throat. Swallowing hard, I added, “I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately, you know, because of Father’s Day and all. I took Mason to see where we used to live on Sunday. A lot of memories there…”
“Aww, I bet.” She paused before adding, “Maybe you could take me there sometime. I’d like to see where you’re from.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said, making a right turn onto the country road that would take me home. “But not today – I’ve got a nice evening planned for us at home.”
“Ooh… sounds romantic!” She smiled.
I smiled back, hoping she wouldn’t be disappointed.
When we pulled up to the house, Natalie gasped. “Oh, Kevin, this is beautiful!”
Another lump rose in my throat as I looked up at the two-story brick colonial, remembering Kristin having a similar reaction the first time she saw it. “Thank you,” I replied. “It was built in 1824, but it’s been completely renovated.”
“I can’t wait to see the inside!” Natalie gushed.
I parked in the driveway and led her up the ramp to the large front porch, rolling past two of the stately white columns to reach the door. I hooked my fingers over the handle and pulled down to turn it, using my other hand to push the door open. “After you,” I said, wheeling back out of the way so she could go in first. I followed her inside and showed her around the first floor.
“You know what’s funny?” she said as she wandered around my music room, looking at the framed record certification plaques that lined the walls. “Sometimes, I forget you’re famous. I mean, you seem like such a normal person. You live in a normal place, and you have a normal house. It’s nice – and big – but, still, pretty normal. And then I walk in here and see all these awards and remember that you’re actually, like, this huge pop star. It’s weird.”
I chuckled. “Only if you make it weird. Please, don’t. I am a normal person.”
“I know,” she replied quickly, smiling at me. “Of course, you are. Sorry if that came out wrong. I guess I’ve just always sorta separated your whole Backstreet Boy persona from the nice guy I met on the plane, so it kinda threw me for a loop to see the two come together.”
“It’s okay. I can see why,” I said, glancing down at myself. “The guy on those album covers looks nothing like the one sitting in front of you.”
She shook her head. “Not true. His face looks exactly the same.”
I shrugged. “I guess… just with fewer wrinkles.”
“Psh… What wrinkles?” she scoffed, taking my face between her hands and tilting my chin toward her. She frowned as she pretended to examine me from different angles. “I don’t see any wrinkles.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Girl, you need to get your eyes checked.”
Laughing, she leaned over and kissed my lips. “Hush. I may be a little near-sighted, but you’re even better looking up close.”
Yeah, ‘cause you can’t see the chair, I thought, but I knew better than to say it out loud. If Natalie was bothered by my wheelchair, she wouldn’t have been there. Somehow, she had always been able to see past my physical flaws. “So are you,” I said, kissing her back with a confidence I didn’t feel. Fake it until you make it. I was going to have to follow that mantra if I wanted to be like that guy on the album covers again.
After we left the music room, I took Natalie upstairs in the tiny elevator I’d had installed a few years earlier.
“This is so cool!” she said excitedly when I opened the door that concealed it. “It’s like a hidden passageway!”
“Something like that,” I said, chuckling. “I hated having to put a modern elevator in a historical home, but it was either that or lose access to half my house.” I pressed the button to take us upstairs. “I suppose a single-level house would have been more practical, but I bought this place with Kristin before we got married. I love it too much to move.”
Natalie nodded. “I can see why,” she said as she stepped out onto the second story landing, glancing down at the gleaming hardwood floor beneath her feet. “It’s absolutely gorgeous.”
“Thanks.” I took her down the hall to show her the bedrooms. “It’s probably more house than I need now that it’s just me and Mason, but I had always planned on having a bigger family. Here’s Mason’s room.” I pushed open the door so she could peek inside.
“It’s so cute!” she said, smiling as she looked around. “He likes planes, too, huh?”
I followed her eyes up to one of the model airplanes that hung from the ceiling. “Uh-huh.” When Mason was a baby, his nursery in our Kentucky home had a farm theme, but once he’d graduated from his crib to a “big boy” bed, my mom had helped me redecorate his room with a transportation theme, replacing the cutesy cows, horses, and pigs with cars, trains, and planes. A colorful hot air balloon hung over his bed where his farm animal mobile had been, while the display shelf on his wall held a ship in a bottle, a model sports car Dawn had helped him put together, and a diecast train. His blue bedspread was patterned with trains, and the rug on his floor had roads for him to drive his toy cars on.
“I’ll bring him some pilot wings next time,” Natalie promised.
“That’s nice of you. He would love that.” I led her down the hall. “That’s Dawn’s room,” I said, pointing to the closed door. “The bathroom’s across the hall. And here’s the guest room. You can leave your bag in here.”
Natalie set her suitcase at the foot of the queen-size bed. “And where do you sleep?” she asked.
“Other end of the hall. I’ll show you.”
“So far away,” she said with a sigh as she followed me down the hall to the master suite.
I smiled. “I mean, you’re always welcome to sleep closer to me if you want to…” I trailed off, letting the invitation hang in the air as I took her into my bedroom. The split king bed was meant for two people, but I worried some parts of my nighttime routine would be a turn-off to her.
She raised an eyebrow and flashed me a flirtatious smile in return. “We’ll just have to see where the night takes us.”
“Hopefully not the hospital this time,” I said, and we both laughed. “But if you want, I can take you on a little tour around the property.”
“Okay!”
We went back downstairs and out the side door.
“Do you have any animals?” Natalie asked, walking alongside me as I wheeled myself down the tree-lined path that led to the barn behind the house.
“No, not right now. This was more of a vacation home for me when I lived in L.A., so I wasn’t here enough to turn it into a working farm. Kristin and I always talked about making this place our permanent residence, but it just made more sense to stay in California – better opportunities for both of us in the entertainment business, you know?” I paused to catch my breath, winded from the effort of pushing and talking at the same time. “All that changed after the accident, of course,” I continued, clearing my throat. “I’d like to get some horses someday, when Mason’s old enough to help me take care of them. Dawn already does enough around here, and I don’t wanna hire anyone else if I don’t have to.”
What I didn’t say out loud was that, while money wasn’t exactly tight, I had spent a lot more than I had earned over the last five years. My BSB royalties didn’t even begin to cover the cost of employing a full-time caregiver, renovating my home to make it more accessible, purchasing customized vehicles, wheelchairs, and other adaptive devices, and paying off a mountain of medical bills. The financial settlement I’d received from the wrongful death lawsuit Kristin’s father had filed after the accident and the money I’d made by selling my house in West Hollywood had helped, but still, I worried about living beyond my means. I didn’t want to become one of those washed-up celebrities who blew through his fortune and had to file for bankruptcy. Doing another album and tour with the Boys seemed like a good way to increase my income, but I knew there were no guarantees. What if the next album was a flop? What if the fans weren’t willing to pay to see their old favorite boy band perform now that most of its members were pushing forty?
“That makes sense,” Natalie said, falling a step behind me.
Suddenly, I felt my wheels moving faster without any extra effort on my part and realized she had started to push me. I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it again, not wanting to seem ungrateful. But I couldn’t help feeling slightly annoyed. She hadn’t even bothered to ask before touching my chair this time.
I kept my hands on my push rims, hoping she would get the hint and take hers off my handles, but she continued to “help” me all the way to the barn. I cleared my throat as we crossed the threshold. “I thought we could take a ride in my UTV,” I said, motioning to the bright blue utility terrain vehicle parked inside.
“Ooh, that looks fun!” Natalie finally let go of my wheelchair as she walked over to admire the UTV. “Do you drive it yourself?”
“Yup. It has hand controls. I bought it before I got my truck to help me get the hang of driving again,” I explained. “Plus, it’s a lot easier for me to get around my property in this than my chair.”
She nodded. “Do you need help getting into it?”
“Nope.” I reached up to grab the wooden sliding board that was hanging on the wall and set it across my knees, determined to prove my independence to her.
“What’s that?” she asked, watching as I wheeled myself over to the driver’s side door.
“A sliding board,” I said, opening the door. “It’s to help me transfer into the seat.” I rolled my chair up a small ramp and onto the wooden platform my brother Tim had built for me, which put my wheelchair at the right height for a lateral transfer into the UTV. I opened the door, then parked my chair next to the driver’s seat. I put on my brakes and took off my arm rest, side guard, and seat belt. Hooking one arm behind my push handle for balance, I leaned forward, letting my upper body flop over onto my lap so I could free my feet from the straps that held them in place on my foot plates. Then I pulled myself upright again. I leaned to the left, lifting my right leg with one hand while I wedged one end of the sliding board under my thigh with the other.
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” I heard a nervous quaver in Natalie’s voice and knew she was probably reliving what had happened the last time I’d tried to transfer in her presence. But this was different.
“No, I got it. It may not be pretty, but I can do this.” I wrangled my right leg into the UTV first. Then, planting the heel of my right hand on the seat and my left hand on my chair, I leaned over and scooted myself across the board. It was a painfully slow process compared to when Dawn helped me transfer, but I managed to make it into the driver’s seat, pulling my left leg in after me.
“Wow,” said Natalie as I fumbled with the five-point safety harness, strapping myself into the seat. “I’m impressed. That looked like it took a lot of effort!”
I nodded, breathing heavily from the physical exertion of hauling one hundred eighty pounds of dead weight around without the use of my triceps. “It’s not easy… but I’ve worked hard to be able to do things by myself when I can,” I said pointedly, hoping – again – that she would take the hint. I picked up my helmet off the passenger seat and put it on. “There’s another helmet on the shelf over there.” I waved my hand toward it. “Not the dinosaur one; that’s Mason’s. Dawn usually wears the other one.”
Natalie laughed as she grabbed the larger of the two helmets. She took her hair out of its ponytail before lowering the helmet onto her head. “Just how dangerous are you driving this thing?” she joked as she climbed into the passenger seat and fastened her seatbelt.
“Don’t worry; I know what I’m doing,” I said, trying not to sound annoyed with her. “I take safety seriously. My brain is pretty much the only part of my body that still works right; I’m not gonna risk that – or my son’s brain. Or my girlfriend’s.”
“Girlfriend’s?” She glanced over at me with a grin. “You got a girlfriend you haven’t told me about?”
I felt my face flush; the word had just slipped out. “No… but I guess I was kinda hoping you’d wanna fill that role.” I flashed her an awkward smile in return, remembering my plan to talk to her about our relationship. This wasn’t the way I’d intended to do it, but since the topic had come up naturally, I went with it. “I’ve really enjoyed talking to you and spending time with you these last two months. I would love for us to take things to the next level and make our relationship official.”
To my surprise, Natalie burst out laughing. “I can’t take you seriously wearing that helmet! Can we take them off and try this conversation again?”
Grudgingly, I pried my helmet off and put it in my lap. In the passenger seat, she did the same, shaking her brown hair out of her face.
“That’s better,” she said, smiling. “Now, where were we?”
I cleared my throat. “I was talking about dating each other exclusively. How would you feel about that?”
Her smile faded. “Honestly? I’ve had kind of a fear of commitment ever since I ended my engagement last year. I haven’t felt like dating anyone seriously. Having your heart broken will do that to you, I guess. I’m not in any big hurry to have it broken again.”
She paused, and my breath caught in my throat. Had she flown all the way here just to tell me she didn’t want us to take things any further?
“But I might be willing to make an exception for you,” she continued, the corners of her lips curving. “After all, you’re a Backstreet Boy. You’ll never break my heart, right?”
I burst out laughing, releasing the breath I’d been holding. “I’ll try not to,” I replied with relief. “But you can’t put too much stock in our song lyrics, considering I’ve already made you cry.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “It doesn’t take much to bring me to tears. I’m what my momma calls ‘tender-hearted.’ I’ve been known to cry at commercials.”
“Me too,” I admitted with a sheepish grin. “The guys always make fun of me for it.”
“Aww… well, I guess we’re meant to be, then,” she said, grinning back.
“Then I guess I do have a girlfriend.” The word still felt strange on my lips; I hadn’t called anyone my “girlfriend” since Kristin and I had gotten engaged. I never thought I would have another one – but, then, I never thought I would end up a widower, either.
I didn’t know if Natalie and I were truly destined to be together or not. All I knew was that it had been a long time since I’d felt this way about anyone. When I drove the UTV out of the barn, the sky over our heads looked a little bit bluer, and the sun seemed a little bit brighter. I watched a pair of redwing blackbirds chase each other into a nearby tree and smiled. Life was certainly looking up.
I made a few laps around the perimeter of my property, pointing out different features: the fenced-in paddock where I could keep horses someday, the fallow fields where the farmer who had lived there before me had planted his crops, and the thickets of trees where Mason liked to play hide-and-seek.
“I’d love to put an inground pool out here someday,” I said above the roar of the engine as I cut across the backyard. “My house in L.A. had one, and I really miss floating in it. But with Mason being so young when we moved back here, I thought it would be better to wait a few years until he was older. You hear so many horror stories of little kids drowning in pools. Even if I was watching, I wouldn’t be able to rescue him if, God forbid, he fell in and couldn’t get out on his own.”
Next to me, Natalie nodded. “That makes sense. Better safe than sorry.”
“Yeah… but then, there’s the older kids who do stupid shit like diving into shallow water and end up breaking their necks. I met a few of those in the rehab hospital after my accident,” I added, shaking my head. “If and when I ever do have a pool installed, I’m gonna make Mason pass a water safety course before he so much as dips a toe into it.” I glanced over at Natalie before guiding the UTV back into the barn. “Told ya I was big on safety.”
She laughed. “You weren’t lying.”
“I know I probably sound paranoid,” I admitted, pulling up next to the wooden platform where my wheelchair was waiting for me. “I don’t wanna be an overprotective helicopter parent, but he’s all I have left. And while I have a good life here, I would never want him to go through what I’ve gone through to get to this point. Hell, I wouldn’t wish the worst parts of being paralyzed on anyone, especially my own son. I would do anything to keep him safe.”
“Of course,” Natalie said softly, taking off her helmet as I parked. “I mean, I’m not a parent, but I can see your point. My sister and I begged for a trampoline every Christmas when we were kids, but Santa never brought us one, and whenever we asked our parents, the answer was always no. Later, I found out it was because my mom knew a guy who broke his neck doing a flip on one.”
“Sounds like a freak accident… but still, you can’t blame her for being overly cautious.” I pulled off my helmet and set it in the passenger seat once Natalie unbuckled and climbed out.
“No, I know,” she said, walking around to my side. “That was my point. I didn’t understand at first, but once I found out her reason for saying no, it made more sense to me. I’m sure Mason will understand your perspective someday, too.”
She waited patiently while I transferred back to my chair. By the time I’d finished wrangling my legs into place and fastening the straps that prevented me from falling out, I was breathing hard, and my upper body was drenched with sweat. “Let’s head back inside the house and have a drink,” I said, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand. “It’s hot as Hell out here.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Natalie replied. As I rolled down the ramp to the concrete floor, she gave me a look of concern. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah… I’m just overheated. You know how I told you I don’t get goosebumps below my level of injury? Well, I don’t sweat down there either, so I can’t regulate my body temperature the way most people can,” I explained, pushing myself toward the barn door.
“Like that night in London,” she said knowingly as she walked alongside me. “When you were so cold, you couldn’t stop shivering in the cab.”
I nodded. “Exactly. I’m just a lot more sensitive to extreme temperatures than I used to be. But I’ll be fine once I get back in the air conditioning.”
“A pool would be pretty nice right about now, wouldn’t it?” Natalie said, putting her hands on my push handles again. I was so exhausted from being out in the heat, I didn’t even think about telling her not to this time.
“Sure would.” I leaned back and let her push me all the way back to the house.
The blast of cool air that hit me when I crossed the threshold felt like heaven on my flushed face. I led Natalie to the kitchen, where we found Dawn filling a glass with ice from the fridge.
“Oh, hey, y’all!” she said, glancing up as we came in. “Welcome, Natalie.”
“Thanks! Nice to see you again, Dawn,” said Natalie, smiling at her.
“You too. I’m just getting a glass of water, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“You don’t have to hide out in your room all day, Dawn,” I said, frowning. She had promised to make herself as scarce as possible to give Natalie and me some privacy, but I’d told her it wasn’t necessary. “You’re part of the family, and this is your home, too.”
“We were just going to get something to drink, too,” Natalie chimed in. “Why don’t you stay down here and have a drink with us?”
Dawn hesitated for a second or two before she finally nodded. “Well, all right. You want a glass of lemonade? I made some this morning. Fresh squeezed! Just kidding – it’s from frozen concentrate.” She grinned.
Natalie laughed. “Sounds great either way,” she said, taking a seat at the table.
I pulled my chair up next to her. Now that I was out of the heat, I felt dizzy and nauseous. I propped my elbows up on the table and rested my head in my hands while I waited for the feeling to pass.
“It’s hot out there, huh?” Dawn said as she set a cup of lemonade down in front of me. I felt her hand on my shoulder.
“Yeah… summer’s definitely here.” I straightened up, taking a sip through the striped straw she’d put in my cup. The ice cold lemonade helped a little.
Dawn ran a dishcloth under cold water, wrung it out, and brought it over, folding it in half before putting it on the back of my neck. That helped a lot.
“Thanks,” I said, sighing with relief.
She left the cool cloth there for a minute or so, then moved it to forehead. “Let me do that, Dawn,” Natalie offered as she began mopping the sweat off my face. “Go get yourself a glass of lemonade.”
I caught the look of surprise that flickered across Dawn’s face, but I don’t know if Natalie noticed. “Have at it,” she said, handing her the cloth.
Natalie took over gently sponging my face. She smoothed my hair back off my forehead before running the wet cloth slowly down the sides of my face, over my cheeks and chin and onto my neck again. “I never noticed this scar before,” she said, tracing the faint white line to the right of my Adam’s apple with her fingertips. “Is that from…?”
I nodded. “They had to go in from both the front and back to fuse the broken vertebrae back together. The one on the back of my neck is bigger.”
Natalie stood up and moved behind me. I felt her hands on the back of my neck, brushing my hair out of the way. “Wow.” Her warm breath tickled my skin as she leaned closer to get a better look at the thin scar that ran down my spine from the base of my skull to the top of my back. “So that’s how they put all that hardware inside you.”
“Yup. Mason calls ‘em my Frankenstein scars.”
She laughed. “They look like they’ve healed well. They’re hardly even noticeable, especially with your hair this length.”
“My mom’s probably got some pictures of what they looked like right after my surgery if you wanna see to compare,” I said, shooting her an impish grin as she sat back down beside me.
“Ha! I think I’ll pass,” she replied, making a face. “Are you cooled off yet?”
I nodded, taking another sip of my lemonade. “Yeah… I feel a lot better now. Thanks.”
Dawn sat down across from us with a glass of lemonade. “So, how was your flight here?” she asked Natalie.
“It was fine. Short,” Natalie said with a shrug. “I’m a long-haul flight attendant, so any flight under four hours feels like nothing to me. It’s literally a hop, skip, and a jump from Atlanta to Lexington.”
“Which I guess is good when we’re in a long-distance relationship,” I added, glancing at her with a smile. “Short flights and frequent flier miles – that’s how we’ll make this work for now.”
Natalie sighed. “If only you still had your magic carpet,” she said, grinning back at me.
Catching the Aladdin reference, I just shook my head and laughed.
***