He decided that he definitely hadn't been imagining things over the past few weeks when he thought that Brooke had been acting unusually soft when she not only willingly answered the door, but actually stayed over there to talk to Holly for a few minutes. And was he crazy, or had she really initiated the conversation without waiting for Holly to do so? It was something he should have been happy about, but he was sure that he had noticed the change a week or so after he had slept with Cara, and the correlation of those events made him feel uneasy. Logically, one thing didn't point to the other. If anything, it made more sense to conclude that Brooklyn might have been affected by the fight that had spurred him cheating, and that was why she was making an effort to be a nicer person. It made more sense than the idea that she somehow knew, because even if she did know, why would she start acting nice? Brooklyn was the kind of girl who seemed like if she found out you had cheated on her, she would tie you down to a bed, stab you, douse you in gasoline and set the bed on fire. Really. Nick loved her, and he loved her crazy bitch side too, but her suddenly growing nicer with the knowledge of him cheating on her just made no sense. He decided, as he worked all of that out in his head, that he really was just being crazy and paranoid, and he vowed to lighten up over it. He didn't want to start drinking yet, even though he noticed Cara had picked up a ton of liquor and some decent beer and wine too, and instead, spent a few minutes talking to Makayla. She seemed out of it but she was always a quiet girl so it didn't seem that uncharacteristic where he felt like he needed to ask her if anything was wrong.
A few minutes into the conversation, he noticed Roman separating himself from the mass in the kitchen and heading into the living room, and he decided to do the same. He excused himself from his conversation with Makayla and a moment later, was sitting next to Roman on the couch. "Mind if I put on the game?" he asked Roman, taking the remote without waiting for the answer and flipping to the Cowboys v. Panthers football game that was on. Nick honestly wasn't a big sports guy. He was into baseball more than any other sport, because it had been the one his grandfather had really followed growing up, but he could follow most sports enough to a point where they would interest him more than some sitcom or reality television show. With football, he really only followed The Giants and 49ers, but growing up, his grandfather rooted for The Packers, so if Brooklyn decided that she didn't want to do the movies later, he would probably tune in to that game too. "I never asked you what happened earlier," he said, remembering a moment after sitting down that Roman had bailed on the smoking invitation. "You never showed up to Makayla's."